Rethinking conservation: There is a boom in India’s tigers and most of it is outside protected areas
The National Tiger Conservation Authority's "Status of Tigers 2022" report shows about 23% of India's tiger population (847 of 3,682 tigers) now lives outside designated protected areas, while 77% (2,835 tigers) occupy the 50-plus tiger reserves
Human-tiger conflict has risen sharply as tigers disperse into shared landscapes: reported deaths from tiger attacks rose from 225 (2014-2019) to 418 (2020-2025)
A 2025 study published in the journal Science found nearly 45% of tiger-occupied areas are shared with an estimated 60 million people
Several reserves have exceeded their estimated biological carrying capacity, pushing tigers to disperse into buffer zones, corridors, and non-protected forest and agricultural landscapes
Conservation experts note this trend calls into question the sufficiency of a purely reserve-focused (core-buffer) conservation model going forward
Project Tiger and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)
Project Tiger was launched in 1973 as a centrally sponsored scheme to protect tigers and their habitat, beginning with nine reserves covering about 9,115 sq km. The NTCA is the statutory body that now administers tiger conservation policy nationally.
Key Details
- NTCA constituted on 4 December 2005 under Section 38L of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, following the Tiger Task Force's recommendations after the Sariska tiger local extinction (2004-05)
- Tiger reserves follow a core-buffer strategy: the core area is kept inviolate for tiger conservation (akin to a National Park), while the buffer permits regulated human activity aimed at coexistence
- Section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 requires state governments to prepare a Tiger Conservation Plan for each reserve, covering habitat management and staff deployment
- India now has 58 notified tiger reserves (as of 2025), up from the original nine in 1973
The growing share of tigers found outside these NTCA-administered reserves suggests the core-buffer legal framework, built for a much smaller tiger population, has not kept pace with the species' current range expansion.
All India Tiger Estimation and Population Recovery
India conducts the All India Tiger Estimation once every four years, jointly by the NTCA and the Wildlife Institute of India, using camera-trap and sign-survey methodology under the "M-STrIPES" monitoring framework.
Key Details
- Cycles conducted in 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 (6th cycle was under way as of 2026)
- Tiger population estimates: 1,411 (2006) → 1,706 (2010) → 2,226 (2014) → 2,967 (2018) → 3,682 (2022)
- India hosts roughly 70-75% of the world's wild tiger population
- The Status of Tigers 2022 report was the first to formally quantify the ~23% share of tigers living outside protected area boundaries
The population recovery documented across successive estimation cycles is the very success that has produced the current "boom outside protected areas," since growing numbers now exceed what core reserve areas can biologically sustain.
IUCN Status and the Global Tiger Recovery Programme
The tiger (Panthera tigris) is listed as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List, and under the newer IUCN Green Status framework is assessed as "Critically Depleted," reflecting how far current populations remain below historic, ecologically functional levels despite recent recovery.
Key Details
- India is party to the Global Tiger Recovery Programme (adopted at the 2010 St. Petersburg Tiger Summit), which set the "TX2" goal of doubling wild tiger numbers by 2022 — a target India met, unlike most range countries
- Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, Schedule I lists the tiger among the highest-protection species, prohibiting hunting except in narrowly defined circumstances
- CITES Appendix I status prohibits international commercial trade in tigers and tiger parts
While India's tiger recovery is a global conservation success story relative to the 2010 St. Petersburg targets, the same recovery is now generating landscape-level conflict and management challenges that a reserve-only strategy was not designed to address.
- Tigers outside protected areas: 847 of 3,682 (~23%); inside protected areas: 2,835 (~77%) — Status of Tigers 2022
- Tiger population trend: 1,411 (2006) → 3,682 (2022)
- Tiger-attack deaths: 225 (2014-19) → 418 (2020-25); 12 deaths in Ramnagar forest division (Uttarakhand) between March 2024 and March 2025 alone
- ~45% of tiger-occupied areas shared with ~60 million people (2025, Science journal study)
- Number of notified tiger reserves: 58 (2025), up from 9 at Project Tiger's 1973 launch
- IUCN Red List status of tiger: Endangered; IUCN Green Status: Critically Depleted
- NTCA established: 4 December 2005, under Section 38L, Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972