Review
A systematic scoping review of tiger conservation in the Terai Arc Landscape and Himalayas PRAMOD K. YADAV,MAT T H EW T. J . BROWNLEE and MOHNIS H KAPO O R
Abstract In the last decade the tiger Panthera tigris popula- tion in the Terai Arc Landscape and Himalayas has in- creased, while populations in other countries have remained below their conservation targets. Although there has been some research on tiger conservation in the Terai Arc Landscape and the Himalayas, scientists and managers have not catalogued and characterized tiger research in the region, with empirical findings scattered among disparate document types, journals and countries. Without a review of the tiger research in the Terai Arc Landscape and Himalayan region, it is difficult to analyse or change con- servation policies, develop adaptation strategies, prioritize research, allocate resources or develop conservation strategies potentially employable elsewhere. We therefore conducted a systematic scoping review to identify focal research areas, the spatial and temporal distribution of study sites, general publication trends, the extent of empirical studies, and gaps in tiger conservation research in this region (which spans Bhutan, India and Nepal). Since 2000, 216 studies have been published on issues associated with tiger conservation in the Terai Arc Landscape and Himalayas, with an increas- ing number over time. Most empirical studies have focused on tiger habitat, ecology and conflicts in protected areas in the region’s foothills. There are research gaps in high-altitude landscapes, social science investigations, conservation eco- nomics, and policy and institutional analyses.
Keywords Bhutan, Himalayas, India, Nepal, Panthera tigris, scoping review, Terai Arc Landscape, tiger conservation
Supplementary material for this article is available at
doi.org/10.1017/S0030605322001156
Introduction T
he tiger Panthera tigris is an apex predator that is sub- ject to a range of threats. As for other threatened carni-
vore species, habitat fragmentation and prey depletion are the primary contributors to the tiger’s threatened status (Sanderson et al., 2019). The spatial overlap of tigers and human-dominated landscapes results in human–tiger con- flict, often leading to livestock depredation, human injury and retaliatory killing of tigers (Letro & Fischer, 2020). Poaching, a significant threat, is fuelled by an increasing de- mand for tiger body parts and derivatives in South-east Asia and elsewhere (Wong & Krishnasamy, 2019). Conservation efforts aim to mitigate these threats and increase the species’ resilience and population size. Recent tiger conservation efforts have been attributed to
the St. Petersburg Declaration in 2010, which allied the 13 tiger range countries under a common goal of global species recovery (Harihar et al., 2018). The Declaration resulted in a commitment to double the wild tiger population by 2022, commonly referred to as the Tx2 goal (Pasha et al., 2018). Attention to tiger conservation has increased significantly since 2010, resulting in stable tiger populations in eastern Russia, Bhutan, India and Nepal (Jhala et al., 2021). However, tiger recovery in the wild varies across countries. For example, the tiger population in India grew from 1,411 in 2006 to 2,967 in 2018 (Jhala et al., 2021), yet tigers are nowfunctionally extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam (Rasphone et al., 2019;Gray et al., 2020). India harbours more than 70%ofthe global wild tiger population (Jhala et al., 2020). In the neighbouring Himalayan countries of Bhutan and Nepal, tiger numbers have also increased (Dhakal et al., 2018;NCD, 2019). Because the Terai Arc Landscape and the Himalayan re-
PRAMOD K. YADAV* (Corresponding author,
orcid.org/0000-0001-8467-0527,
pramody@clemson.edu) and MATTHEW T. J. BROWNLEE*† Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, USA
MOHNISH KAPOOR Global Tiger Forum, East of Kailash, New Delhi, Delhi, India
*Also at: Tigers United University Consortium, Clemson University, Clemson, USA †Also at: Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation, Clemson University, Clemson, USA
Received 18 November 2021. Revision requested 1 April 2022. Accepted 13 September 2022. First published online 2 November 2022.
gion, particularly areas above 2000 m, have not generally been considered primary tiger habitat, research in this re- gion has been limited, with empirical findings scattered among various document types, including journals, reports and newspapers. Without an adequate summary of the state of tiger research in the Terai Arc Landscape and the Himalayan region, it is challenging to analyse or change conservation policies, develop adaptation strategies, pri- oritize research programmes or allocate resources for con- servation. We conducted a systematic scoping review for tiger con-
servation in the Terai Arc Landscape and the Himalayas, guided by two research questions: (1) what are the nature,
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use. Oryx, 2022, 56(6), 888–896 © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605322001156
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