Working with the Corbett Foundation, the Rare Species Fund has recently supplied lanterns and a charging station for an entire village located in central India.
The Problem
As the human population has expanded in India, people have encroached ever more into tiger territory. In addition, many tiger preserves were established around pre-existing villages. Currently more than 1 million people legally live within these preserves. These factors lead to human-tiger conflict. Many of these villages lack electricity and the locals must venture into tiger forests to collect wood for fuel, to burn for a source of light. Although well within the tiger's protected home, if a human intruder is attacked, the tiger is labeled a man-eater and is often hunted and killed.
The Solution
A primary reason villagers collect wood is light. By providing an alternative light source, locals would not have to resort to entering the tiger forests. The challenge is how to supply that light to a village without electricity and do so in an environmentally conscious manner. The answer has presented itself with recent technological advancements in low-power-usage rechargeable lanterns and high efficiency solar power charging stations. Working with the Corbett Foundation, the Rare Species Fund has recently supplied lanterns and a charging station for an entire village located on the buffer zone of the Kanha National Park in central India. This area is considered prime tiger habitat as an estimated 120 tigers currently exist over a 5000 sq. km. range.
Additional benefits:
- Communities who have always lived in darkness, now have a source of light.
- Children have an opportunity to study at night.
- Portable lanterns can be carried into the fields at night to keep vigil against crop raiding herbivores.
- Reduction in the burning of fossil fuels at night will have a positive effect on the health of the people.
- Communities derive benefit from this pro-conservation effort, having a positive effect on long term tiger conservation programs in the area.
Partnering in Conservation
The RSF is working directly with The Corbett Foundation to supply lanterns to local Indian villagers. TCF was named for James Corbett and the first tiger park in India which bares his name. James Corbett was a hunter turned conservationist. As a colonel in the British Indian Army, he was considered a saint by many locals for killing various man-eating tigers and leopards. After examining the dead cats, James Corbett discovered that many had sustained previous injuries, including a tiger with two bullets in its shoulder and a tigeress riddled with infected porcupine quills. These injuries prevented these cats from hunting their natural prey. This discovery reflects current human-tiger conflict situations. Given their natural choice, tigers tend to avoid encounters with people. It is when they are pushed into a fight for survival that we see confrontations.
Learn more about conservation efforts for tigers, ligers, elephants, orangutans, gibbons, apes and more. Visit www.myrtlebeachsafari.com/signup to get started on your own interactive tour while helping this amazing foundation!
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