Saving tigers in India with eco-tourism

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The one fact that struck me as the most interesting at a recent lecture by Dr Raghu Chandawat, an emminent tiger scientist, was that the well-known tourism zone of Bandhavgarh Tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh held a greater density of wild tigers than he had ever believed possible in such a small area. So is tourism really that good at protecting tigers? The fact is that today, parks with both tigers and tourism hold the greatest density of tigers left in India. Screaming headlines across the world tell the real story of plummeting wild tiger numbers, with 'independently verified' figures now reckoning numbers to be 1300, a collapse of over 40 per cent in just the last ten years. Poaching, revenge killings, Chinese medicine, pelt sales, population and livestock pressures and deforestation are held up as the principle causes. I....