Tiger in landscapes, tiger in mindscapes: a constructionist analysis of tiger conservation through corridor management in the Terai Arc Landscape, Nepal: A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Resource Studies at Lincoln University

Abstract

Asian forests are losing their top predator, the tiger (Panthera tigris), at a rate that threatens its survival in the wild and poses a serious threat to local ecosystem balance. On the other hand, conservation efforts for the tiger are heavily influenced by conflicts with humans living adjacent to their last remaining habitats. Amidst this tension the countries, which make up tigers’ natural habitat range, together with conservation organizations are continuously making efforts to save this endangered species. A recent commitment has been to attempt to double tiger numbers by 2022. To this end, an emerging landscape-based approach to conservation has been identified as the most effective approach to save tigers and other important wildlife species on a large scale in these countries. This approach aims to connect habitat patches such as protected areas through restoring and maintaining biological corridors to facilitate dispersal and movement of wildlife for their genetically viable, long term survival. However, the biological corridors outside protected areas within human dominated landscapes such as Terai Arc Landscapes (TAL), Nepal, a highly prioritized tiger conservation landscape, fall within community-managed forest areas having widespread access by local village people for forest products. Tigers already pose significant threats to livestock and human lives around protected areas and hence have the potential to create even greater risk in such corridors.

In this context, using “moderate constructionism” and Social Construction of Nature theoretical perspectives under constructionist epistemology, this research aims to understand how social constructions of tiger are changing with the intervention of the TAL Nepal program in Khata community-managed forest corridor, how such local changes in constructions are influenced by contemporary national and global constructions, and what implications such changes have to sustainable tiger conservation management. While using the constructionist approach, this research also attempts to ascertain its increasingly claimed practical significance to wildlife management. Semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis methods were employed for data collection.

It was found that negative or agnostic constructions of tiger in Khata corridor prior to implementation of the TAL program has transformed to mostly positive constructions post TAL. This transformation is local people’s negotiation between their own experience based meaning of tigers and the overarching global and national tide of saving endangered tigers. Currently prevailing positive constructions, however, are fragile as they are influenced by many factors, most importantly, conflict with tigers and other wildlife, sustained external assistance, development aspirations and actualisation, and realization of tangible benefits of tigers and equitable sharing of those benefits among local people. This implies that continued community support for tiger conservation in Khata is determined by those influencing factors.

Recommendations from this research include the need for concerned agencies to appropriately address those factors. Application of the constructionist approach was found to be useful to aid better wildlife management through understanding meanings of wildlife and underlying social processes. This approach has great potential to assist species focused large scale landscape approach to conservation through mapping temporal and spatial diversity of meanings of wildlife and their implication to wildlife management.