“Every piece of land that we can restore is important”

How did you get involved in conservation, and with tigers in particular?

From the start, I had an inkling that I wanted to work on something that would keep me close to nature and wildlife.

Growing up in India, where 70% of the world’s tiger population is found, you’re never far from tigers and stories about them. From a young age, I was travelling with my parents through dense forests, deep in tiger territory, and listening to my grandfather recount tiger tales. So since childhood, the species has always been part of my life.

In terms of professionally getting involved with tiger conservation, I don’t obsess about a specific species – I believe in the conservation of biodiversity at large. My focus on tigers happened after I joined WWF around 12 years ago when we started working on tigers as a priority species.

What was it like to be part of the 2010 launch of the TX2 goal to double wild tiger numbers by 2022?

I was in St Petersburg where world leaders were gathering to discuss what needed to happen to save tigers. So being ‘on the ground’ was historic.

This was exciting because it was the first time that leaders at the highest levels from across the world had come together to rally around a single species. Political momentum like that was simply unheard of. So to witness that was something I can count as one of the high points of my career. I remember feeling a sense of, “this is it, we’ve finally done it.”

At the end of TX2, how do you feel about the future of tiger recovery?

The fact that some tiger range countries are on track to achieving – or have already achieved – the ‘doubling tiger numbers’ goal is a very significant accomplishment. While most species are in decline, here we have a species where we seem to have bent the curve, and that’s something to celebrate.

What I’m worried about is that whenever we get complacent, we see how easy it is for the situation to slip back. We’ve seen that with tigers in India – once you take your eye off the ball, especially if poaching is not addressed, you can wipe out an entire tiger population quite quickly, which would bring us back to square one.

Today, tiger recovery, particularly in this part of the world, is also deeply connected to human-wildlife coexistence. We’re dealing with limited space, climate change impacts and a host of other threats. The good news is the last 12 years have given us plenty of lessons and examples to adapt and pull from.

What more needs to be done to address human-wildlife conflict?

We need to think about how to ensure that people who bear the price of conservation – the people on the ground living closest to wildlife – are the biggest beneficiaries of conservation. It’s about rights, governance, compensation, incentives and so much more. It’s extremely complex, and that’s what we’re addressing.

On a day-to-day basis, we’re working with people living near tiger habitats to see how we can have a fairer, more equitable and inclusive approach towards conservation. It’s all of us in it together.

Among your conservation achievements, you’ve helped create Jabarkhet Nature Reserve, a privately owned and operated wildlife sanctuary. What inspired you to do this?

Jabarkhet is a 110-acre private nature reserve, the first of its kind in the state of Uttarakhand, where I live. It’s part of a new conservation approach that’s separate from protected areas, and which helps communities support their countries to steer the planet towards the UN goal of reversing and halting nature loss by 2030. 

When I was a child, this patch of nature was my playground. I grew up walking its forest trails. But when I returned from overseas after many years, I found that my backyard was slowly disintegrating. It had virtually become a dumping ground for trash and the forest was degrading due to unregulated use. It felt like it was crying for help, and I knew something had to be done.

From there, things just grew organically from conversations with the land owners, forest users and local communities. We were thinking about how to create a model where ‘conservation pays’ and where people who own these tracts of forests, be it a community or a private individual, can see that this forest has value beyond the land and timber.

How has nature responded to the changes in the reserve?

Once we began reducing the pressure on the area – removing the invasive weed, controlling the logging and grass cutting, and managing grazing – nature simply started doing its own thing.

Within the first year, we saw the grassland returning, flowers blooming, berries growing and mushrooms sprouting – about 120 species of mushrooms, 350 species of flowering plants and 40-50 species of grasses that started emerging over time. Slowly, I even saw the forest canopy closing above me.

Then the wildlife came back. We saw droppings from barking deer, wild boar, martens and porcupines, to name only a few of the mammals. We removed a lot of exotic weeds, which brought the herbivores back. With prey returning, the leopards came back. Shortly after, the Himalayan black bear returned after 40 years.

With my own eyes, I’ve seen this whole cycle of how an ecosystem can recover, of how nature can get destroyed and then restored all over again. It’s been great to see.

Are there lessons for tiger conservation from Jabarkhet?

Well, not many people know this yet, but one day I was going through our camera trap images from the reserve. I remember sitting there deleting all the extra shots in the camera… until I saw this stripey thing. I remember thinking, “Hang on, is that a tiger?”

I didn’t think it was possible, but a tiger had really made its way to Jabarkhet Nature Reserve, within a few years since we began restoring it. It’s impossible to put into words what you feel in moments like this – it makes everything worthwhile and shows the immense value of restoring these ‘stepping stone’ forests.

I called a colleague who was able to confirm that it was a young male who must have been pushed out somewhere in the plains and started walking uphill and had made its way onto this mountain. This tiger could travel to our reserve because it had pathways to do so, which speaks to the connectivity of landscapes.

What would you say to anyone with access to a piece of land that they have the potential to restore?

In the world today, every piece of land that we can protect and restore is important. There’s going to be so much pressure on nature in the coming years that there’s no such thing as an area too small. My message to people is to just do it – find your own model and simply get on with it.