That is why, when villagers here lose their livestock to tigers, there is prompt compensation. The government gives the villagers sums ranging between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 for cows and buffalos that fall prey to the big cats. The NGO Jim Corbett Foundation also compensates them on a case-to-case basis.

The Ecotourism Experiment

It is important to involve the villagers in tiger conservation. While three sides of Corbett Reserve are surrounded by forests, as many as 27 villages share a border with the buffer zone (445 sq km). In a recent notification, the inviolate critical habitat of the park has been set at 825 sq km. More than 200 Gujjar families live in the buffer sone. Two years ago, the park, under Director Rajiv Bhartari, a Board member on the International Ecotourism Society, decided to involve the local villagers to strengthen ecotourism activities. About 20 per cent of the total budget of the park’s Rs 3 crore was put aside for ecotourism.

“The scale at which I was suggesting ecotourism was a new idea,” says Bhartari, who is credited for being solely responsible for the success of the experiment. “The administration here privately predicted I would last only two months while the private resorts thought I could survive only a year,” he laughs.

It worked. For a start, thirty rooms in Dhikala forest rest house were renovated. In 2005, 24 local villagers were trained to work as room attendants. In 2006, 20 more were trained, injecting youth and passion in the tourist service as well as creating a vital link with eco-samitis in the villages. Seventy-two nature guides and 200 Gypsy drivers were taken in as well. An additional housekeeping charge was added to each bill, helping pay for the salaries of the new recruits as well as paying for services like laundry and naphthalene balls.

... contd.