Project Tiger and Project Elephant

Project Tiger was launched on 1 April 1973, following concern about falling tiger numbers. It began with nine reserves, including Jim Corbett in Uttarakhand, where the project was formally launched. Its core-buffer model protects a strictly managed core for breeding and feeding, surrounded by a buffer where regulated human use is allowed. The National Tiger Conservation Authority, created through the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006, now oversees the programme.

By March 2025 India had 58 tiger reserves, the newest then being Madhav in Madhya Pradesh, notified in March 2025. The All India Tiger Estimation of 2022 reported 3,167 tigers by one counting method and an estimated 3,682 in the fuller published estimate, roughly three-quarters of the world's wild tigers. The difference between the two figures is a counting and estimation point that examiners and readers should not blur: one is the minimum number photographed or otherwise recorded, the other is a modelled population estimate.

Project Elephant, launched in February 1992 as a centrally sponsored scheme, has a different problem. Elephants range widely, cross state boundaries and use corridors that are not always protected land. Its aims are to protect elephants, their habitat and corridors, address human-elephant conflict and look after captive elephants. There are 33 elephant reserves, and the 2017 census estimated about 29,964 wild elephants, though methods and totals are debated and a newer synchronised estimation has been under way.

Together the two projects show both the strength and the limit of species-led conservation. A flagship species can protect whole habitats and attract funding, but it can also concentrate attention on one animal while corridors, water, fodder and the safety of nearby farmers receive less. Conflict — crop damage, property loss and, tragically, human and elephant deaths — is where conservation policy meets daily life, and mitigation there is as important as a census figure.