Programme

Providing Health Support to Local Villages

SIT runs a Mobile Health Unit through the Nature Conservation Society Amravati and has been operating since the outset of SIT. The unit is a well-equipped ambulance, crewed by volunteer and dedicated doctors working together with a health assistant.

The unit operates in over 150 villages in 6 Tigers Reserves in the SIT Satpuda range; Melghat, Tadoba-Andhari, Pench (Maharashtra), Piyadarshini Pench (Madhya Pradesh), Navegaon-Nagzira (MS) and Satpuda Tiger Reserve (Madhya Pradesh).

Promoting Benefits of Forest Protection

In 2005, SIT through BNHS started the Mobile Environmental Education Unit (MEEU), as a part of the Stadpuda Landscape Tiger Programme (SLTP). It is a landscape‐level conservation educational programme educating people in the local villages.  The programme is supported by Born Free Foundation, Tata Steel, Wild Cru, Oxford University, Share and Care Foundation, Van Neste Foundation and some individual donors. The purpose of the programme is to address tiger conservation issues in the numerous villages surrounding Satpuda Landscape encompassing 10 tiger reserves and several sanctuaries.

Initially the MEEU was working in villages surrounding three protected areas; Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve and Pench Tiger Reserve (Maharashtraand Madhya Pradesh divisions) and has recently expanded its operation to tiger reserves of Bor, Nagzira ‐ Navegaon and Kanha.

Creating Positive Choices for Change

As part of efforts to relocate willing communities from sensitive areas in the Satpuda landscape, SIT, through CAT and Satpuda Foundation, actively assisted the Forest Department by holding meetings with a number of villages regarding their relocation, as well as facilitating a meeting with a village which has already undergone relocation, providing a valuable opportunity for information exchange.

Creating Innovative Energy Solutions for Villages

SIT is involved in some energy-related programmes aimed at reducing deforestation which occurs as villagers enter the forest to fetch firewood to burn in their domestic stoves.

Leveraging our SIT message

Increased protection has resulted in a rise in wild life numbers, which in turn has seen an increase in the dispersal of animals beyond the core boundaries into the peripheral forests. Presence of wild animals near villages and fields has resulted in conflict between wild animals and livestock, wild ungulates and people and some attacks on people. Added to this is the pressure of the increasing human population along the forest periphery and overlap of natural resources by wildlife and people.

SIT through TRACT has commenced a program ‘Tiger Ambassadors’ on the concept of local participation for conservation, to address the management of this conflict by sensitizing and educating the local communities living in the periphery of these areas and making them responsible for minimizing conflict.

Getting Crucial Wildlife Movement Data

A school from Pawani (Pench MS periphery) was selected for the e-Mammal project. e-Mammal is a Citizen Science-based project in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institute that uses camera traps to document animal population sizes, activation patterns, and habitat use.  Under this proposal, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (US), the Bombay Natural History Society and the Museo de Paleontología ( Mexico) had worked together to engage children and their teachers also for generating data for scientists in each of these respective countries.

Holding Government to Account

Whilst SIT works closely with the Forest Department and local Park Directors on various programmes occasionally it becomes necessary to hold the government agencies to account if SIT feels that the environmental considerations are not being properly accounted for.

SIT, through CAT, will collect the relevant data and collate this in relation to the relevant laws and regulations and make the case for a different approach to be taken or extra mitigating plans to be put in place.

Analysing Data to Create Deeper Understanding

SIT have been involved in the collection and collation of scientific data to aid in conservation measures around the Satpuda Landscape. Data has been collected which has demonstated ways of reducing the risk of tiger attacks on humans which has then led to an educational campaign on how to minimize personal risk for those villagers that do enter the park areas.

In Tadoba this science-based educational programme has reduced mortality figures from approximately one person per month to approximately one per year.

Recognising Special Contributions

Each year, the Born Free Foundation offers a SIT Conservation Hero Award to a grassroots conservationist working to protect tigers and their habitat in Central India. The award is for a small monetary amount to assist with the person’s tiger conservation work and as a mark of recognition for the particular contribution that person has made.

Making Land Suitable for Wildlife

SIT has an ongoing programme of land management improving and making safe for wildlife land primarily in the buffer zone. Initiatives are run via Corbett Foundation and other partners such as 5,000 tree sapling planting in the Khana-Pench and Bandhavgarh-Sanjay-Dubri wildlife corridors, the distribution of high-yielding milch fodder for cattle to avoid forest grazing and the fencing off of water wells.

Giving Locals New Ideas for Employment

A number of SIT partners have run a variety of skills development initiatives giving local villagers new ideas and training in manufacturing goods for sale.

Providing New Income

As the core areas produce more tigers these eventually disperse in to the non-protected buffer zone areas surrounding the parks which can be highly populated and hence the likelihood of human-tiger conflict is increased.  SIT has started to experiment in Taroba park to promote tourism in these areas to give tourists a fresh experience to widen their understanding of the issue involved in these local villages.

Reducing grazing pressures on forests and disease spread from domestic to wild animals

The Corbett Foundation with the support of Born Free Foundation, UK has embarked on a stall-feeding project in Baherakhar village in the buffer zone of Kanha Tiger Reserve. The project helps provide fodder, grown on private land, to cattle owners who are encouraged to adopt stall-feeding for their cattle instead of the traditional free grazing that they have been practicing.

Free grazing of cattle in and around Tiger Reserves puts a lot of pressure on the forest by affecting regeneration, creating resource competition with wild herbivores, increasing the risk of spreading diseases among the wild animals and enhancing the risk of human-wildlife conflict. This is a pioneering initiative, introduced for the first time in the Kanha Tiger Reserve landscape and will be a model which can be replicated in other forested landscapes.

Meeting up and Sharing Best Practice

Each year Saving India’s Tiger partners meet up close to one of the Satpuda Landscape parks to discuss progress against objectives and to share ideas and best practice. These events are always well attended and SIT takes the opportunity to invite along local Field Directors and members of the Forest Department as well as others involved in conservation initiatives.

Tigers are under threat from all sides, including consumer demand for tiger parts and products.