Tiger Habitat Declined 40% Since 2006, Face Threat Of 24,000 Km Road Projects In 30 Years

Humans have been encroaching the space of other species on planet Earth since time immemorial.?

A sad realisation of this has now been portrayed in a study by Yale University that says that around 83,300 miles?(~1.34 lakh km)?of roads that cross through tiger habitat are “decreasing the population and its prey by as much as 20 percent.”

BandipurTigerreserve.in

Tiger, an endangered species throughout the planet, will not be escaping this fate anytime soon. As per the study, nations around the globe are further expected to build “nearly 15,000 miles?(~24,000 km) of new roads through tiger habitat” by 2050.

The encroachment, in part, will be driven by major infrastructure projects such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a new analysis published in the journal Science Advances narrates.

Identifying the danger

For the research, ecologists at the University of Michigan examined global road datasets as well as the forecasts for upcoming infrastructure around tiger’s 450,000-square-mile range in Asia. This was done in order to calculate the road density, distance to the nearest road, and population of the species in the regions.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

As per the study, 43 percent of breeding activity by tigers occurs within 3 miles of a road. That is also because around 57 percent of land in protected tiger habitats lies within 3 miles of a road.

An interesting insight shared in the research mentions how the “areas without any formal wildlife protections had road densities 34 percent higher than protected areas.” This means that conservation efforts are critical by law to save the habitat of tigers and hence their lives.

The current scenario

Only about 4,000 tigers exist in the wild today, and we need to protect every single one of them. Most of these are found in South Asia, a region with mounting development and population pressures. Building more roads, hence, seems a natural progression to these development efforts. The question that countries should now try to answer is, how to avoid that in places which are known tiger habitats.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

Neil Carter, an ecologist at the University of Michigan and lead author of the study says, “Tiger habitats have declined by 40 percent since 2006, underscoring the importance of maintaining roadless areas and resisting road expansion in places where tigers still exist, before it is too late.”

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