India's Project Tiger Celebrates 50 Years of Success and Advocates for Indigenous Land Rights.

As India's tiger population recovers, Indigenous groups are protesting the conservation strategies that have displaced them from their ancestral lands. The conservation model, centered around creating protected reserves, has been criticized for uprooting communities that have lived in the forests for millennia. Several Indigenous groups have set up committees to protest evictions and seek a voice in how the forests are managed. Despite a government forest rights law passed in 2006, only about 1% of the more than 100 million Adivasis in India have been granted any rights over forest lands. Critics say the social costs of fortress conservation are high and engaging with communities is the way forward for protecting wildlife in India.