'People central to tiger recovery'

Dr Sejal Worah, Programme Director, WWF-India

Excerpts from Dr Sejal Worah’s interview in tigers.panda.org

• I do not 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.
• 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 achievement…  Most species are in decline.
• What I'm worried about is that whenever we get complacent or lose momentum, we start to see how easy it is for the situation to slip back… I have seen in India once you take your eyes off the ball, especially if poaching is not addressed, you can wipe out an entire tiger population quite quickly.
• 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 whole host of other threats. So… we really have to think about how to manage the future scenario.
• Here in India, where tiger numbers are still increasing alongside a growing human population, we need to … remember that one of our biggest sources of knowledge is with the people who have been living with tigers across the country.
• Looking across the tiger's range, estimates suggest nearly 47 million people live in tiger landscapes, and an additional 85 million are estimated to live within 10 kilometres of these areas. Their voices need to be central to future global tiger recovery efforts - we cannot take their support for granted. We need to understand tiger behaviour and the future of people living alongside them and put together this jigsaw puzzle for what it means to secure a future for tigers and people.
• 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.  
• On a day to day basis, we are 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.
• Every landscape, including the tiger landscape, is different. To me, that's what makes the tiger so unique - you can find them in mountains of snow in the Russian Far East, in mangrove swamps, tropical forests and dry deserts.