The Better India · 4 days ago

53 Years of Project Tiger: How One Effort Helped India’s Wildlife & Forests Come Alive Again

A young filmmaker arrived in Ranthambore in the 1970s seeking quiet, and instead found a tigress named Padmini whose lineage would anchor him to a lifelong calling. When Valmik Thapar first encountered her, India had just 1,827 wild tigers left-a number that forced the launch of Project Tiger in 1973, an urgent bet that protecting one species could restore entire ecosystems. The wager worked: today India holds over 3,000 tigers and 58 reserves, proof that "when a tiger is protected, the forest around it is protected too," allowing grasslands, waterways, and countless other species to recover. Yet the next 53 years demand something harder than numbers-learning to share space, connecting fragmented forests, and centering the communities who live closest to the wild. What began with one person staying, one tigress surviving, became a country choosing coexistence over loss.