Economics of carnivore depredation: A case study from the northern periphery of Corbett Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand, India

Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) supports several important species such as the tiger (Panthera tigris), leopard (Panthera pardus), elephant (Elephas maximus), and sambar (Cervus unicolor). Some of the species are involved in crop damage, livestock depredation, and human injuries or causalities, causing economic and social losses. Tigers and leopards are perceived as the major threat, causing economic losses to the people living around the protected areas (PAs), because of livestock depredation. Alternatively, the local community also draws benefits from the forest, which are seldom considered part of their economy. Here, we assessed the economic losses and benefits to the people at the northern periphery of the CTR based on semi-structured questionnaire survey of 301 respondents in 26 villages, between January and June 2018. We also determined the socio-economic factors associated with forest dependency using Ordinary Least Square regression (OLS). Most respondents (98%) reported reliance on the forest for fuelwood, fodder, and cattle grazing. Income from forest resources (US$ 1102.2 ± 63.6/hh/yr) 2 contributed significantly to the livelihood of the people (26.5 ± 1.3%). The income from fuelwood (US$ 188.1 ± 2.2/hh/yr), fodder (US$ 335.0 ± 10.0/hh/yr) and livestock grazing (US$ 618.1 ± 59.9/hh/yr) contributed 5.6 ± 0.3%, 9.3 ± 0.6%, and 11.6 ± 1%, respectively, to the household's total income. Reliance on forest resources was positively associated with the number of livestock and female participation in resource extraction, and negatively with the employment, age, education of respondents, and use of modern source of energy -Liquid Petroleum Gas. People incurred a cost of US$ 110.5 ± 4.7/hh/yr due to livestock depredation. It was estimated that benefits drawn from the forest exceed the losses incurred due to livestock depredation. Therefore, we recommend that a cost-benefit analysis is essential before designing conflict mitigation strategies. Since the compensatory schemes in India have largely struggled to achieve their objectives, it is, therefore, emphasised to find other measures, such as payment of ecosystem services (PES), to reduce conflict for maintaining a peaceful co-existence of human and carnivores.