Kuno National Park: Displacement And Resettlement

Instead we attempt to assess efficacy of displacement as a tool for conservation using as a case study the experience of population displacement from a wildlife protected area in central India – the Kuno National park in the state of Madhya Pradesh. We attempt to examine, through the lens of the displacement experience of Kuno national park, whether an adequate attempt is being made to reconcile these two imperatives. We argue that displacement can be considered a sustainable and ethically tenable tool for conservation only if it fulfils these two imperatives simultaneously. We hope to show, using the Kuno experience that so far, population displacements from protected areas (PAs) in India have been undertaken without basic understanding of and preparedness for handling the complex tasks at hand, and have been implemented without adequate attention to restoring lost livelihoods of the resident people. This indicates that successful and adequate rehabilitation of PA dependent communities is unlikely to happen in India in the near future, unless significant changes can be made to the policies and practices governing displacement. Without such changes, displacement will continue to be a highly contentious conservation tool, which will, to the detriment of conservation goals, serve to sharpen already serious human-wildlife conflicts.