Dr.George Schaller with Dr.Ullas Karanth

India is a mega-diversity country that is particularly rich in vertebrate fauna. This is a result of its unique biogeography, evolutionary and social histories. It has faunal elements from the Indo-Malayan, Afro-tropical and palearctic regions. For example, out of the 226 extant carnivore species in the world, 52 species, including lions, hyenas, tigers, wolves, snow leopards, leopards and 3 species of bears, occur in India, with even the cheetah being extirpated only fifty years ago.

The country has an ancient culture that views humans as a part of nature rather than as its masters; that shows a higher degree of toleration for other life forms compared to any other part of the world. Partly as a result of this - and partly due to India's colonial history - several effectively protected nature reserves have been established during the last thirty years. These now cover about 5% of the land area. However, there are formidable challenges to 'saving wildlife' in India: a billion strong human population largely dependent on land-based occupations; a high degree of reliance on biomass for fuel, energy and structural materials; excessive livestock densities - all now supplemented by a modern consumerist economy growing at 10% a year; rapidly changing cultures and attitudes towards wildlife. However, the major social and ecological transformations that we are now seeing in the rest of the tropical world - such as forest conservation and fragmentation - had occurred in India over a thousand years ago.

In this context, Wildlife Conservation Society - India program focuses on charismatic endangered megafauna in protected reserves - as the most appropriate social tactic for saving biodiversity. During its 13 years of development, WCS-India program has blossomed from a single research project to encompass all the major strategies now pursued by WCS globally: research, capacity building, policy interventions and site-based conservation.