The wilderness of the sal-dominated landscape of Dudhwa National Park and Tiger Reserve in Uttar Pradesh, the sole representative of Terai ecosystem in the foothills of the Himalayas, has supported the stupendous increase in tiger count over the years, which now stands at a whopping 120.

In Terai, which is one of the most threatened ecosystems in the country, tourism is being promoted, but in a balanced manner. The idea is to promote positive environmental ethics and foster preferred behaviour among the participants and not degrade resources. ?We are all for promoting eco-tourism in the Park, but we ensure that it is balanced and is also backed by intensive management so that the animals in the forest do not feel threatened,? says Shailesh Prasad, field director of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, adding that the entire focus of the forest staff is to ensure that the ecosystem is not disturbed. ?The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is the only reserve representative of Terai-bhabar biogeographic sub-division of the upper Gangetic plains and has the potential to provide habitat to a variety of wildlife populations,? he says.

Indeed, the results of this approach are visible. There are as many as 47 species of mammals that have been reported from this area, among which tiger, leopard, Indian elephant, leopard cat, fishing cat, sloth bear, swamp deer, pangolin, flying squirrel and Indian Smooth Otter are listed in Schedule 1 of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act. ?The reserve is the only place in the country to hold a potentially viable population of the swamp deer, Cervus duvauceli duvauceli. Of the seven species of deer found in the country, five are found in the reserve, including sambar, chital, hog deer, swamp deer and barking deer,? says Prasad.

The reserve also supports around 450 species of birds, all major reptiles and as many as eight species of turtles. ?This is also the place where the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros has been successfully reintroduced,? he adds.

The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve comprises the Dudhwa National Park, Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and the Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary. Located on the Indo-Nepal border, the northern boundary of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is conterminous with the Indo-Nepal border.

Once this woodland-grassland-wetland complex harboured a variety of fauna and flora, but it witnessed major changes in the last 150 years on account of long history of forest management, settlement of migrants, changes in land use, agriculture expansion and various developmental pressures. At present, it is the anthropogenic pressure with agriculture and homesteads, which acts as a deterrent, replacing the rich natural vegetation of the past. As a result, only four large forest fragments and several small and scattered forests are present amidst the human dominated matrix. Among these four, three fragments have been designated as protected areas and are part of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. Dudhwa National Park, Kishanpur WLS and Katerniaghat WLS stand out as the primary protected area complex, while the Pilibhit Forest Division is classified as a reserve forest.

The objective of Park management is to promote ecotourism and conservation awareness by providing informed and rich wilderness experience to visitors and involving local people in tourism and interpretive and conservation education programmes. However, there are many problem areas which are being juggled to strike the right balance. ?We need trained personnel for handling the requirements of this sector, which is not available. While personnel from the general pool are posted in the tourism range, they are expected to cater to the specialised requirements of this sector, which they are not trained to address. The existing interpretive facilities need further enhancement to cater to the cause of interpretive education and nature interpretation,? says Prasad.

The biggest challenge in managing the Park is to ensure that there is minimal man-animal conflict, which can be traumatic on both ends. The Dudhwa tiger reserve is a high-population area, which supports about five lakh people, with approximately one lakh livestock in 111 villages, both in and around the reserve spanning three districts of Uttar Pradesh. Most locals depend on several forest-based resources for their subsistence. Firewood and fodder, being the most significant resources extracted out of the forested areas, are regarded as the principal cause of disturbance and degradation within forests, besides the loss of forest cover to agricultural expansion. Further, extraction of non-timber forest products contributes significantly to the household economy, leading to conflicts with wild animals, especially large carnivores, throughout the area. Crop raiding and injury or loss of livestock leads to added conflict, which are typical of the forest human habitation interface.

While there has been not a single report of poaching inside the Park area since 2009, a record of sort for any national park in the country, it is a fact that the area has had a long-standing problem of tigers attacking and killing humans at the fringes of the forest. ?These incidents now mostly occur outside the park area boundaries as the agricultural fields offer continuity of habitat out of the forest areas by providing appropriate combination of conditions for resting, hiding and ambush cover to the tigers. The number of tigers outside the Reserve boundaries increases during the monsoon and post-monsoon period when in search of food they follow the herbivores out to the agricultural fields,? says Prasad.

The tiger is the topmost predator in the terrestrial ecosystem. Its principal prey species are wild boar, spotted deer, swamp deer and hog deer, while the leopard?s main prey species are small sized ungulates, langurs and monkeys. In order to ensure that the animals do not stray into human habitations, the Park management has effectively tried ensuring that there is ample prey for the big predators inside the park itself.

?There are many perceived threats both to the ecosystem and the fauna inhabiting the area. First is the disturbance in habitat by the local communities having a natural resource dependency. Poaching is another threat as the spotted deer, hog deer and wild boar were sometimes eaten by the locals especially on festive occasions. The porous international Indo-Nepal border makes this area more vulnerable. In addition to these, destruction of habitat by flash floods also poses serious threat to the area. Besides, the roads and the railway lines passing through the entire Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is a major threat because accidental killings of wild animals have been noticed in past few years,? feels Prasad.

But in spite of the bottlenecks, constraints and threats, what Dudhwa has achieved and strives to achieve further can be used as a primer for other national parks and sanctuaries in the country. The wildlife conservation mission in India needs more such stories.