June 2010: “The phalanx of resorts on the eastern boundary of the park interrupts the once continuous corridor used by elephants, tigers and other wild animals to access the Kosi river and the forests of the Ramnagar Division. Very few resorts have an acceptably low ecological footprint.

I do not understand how people can treat animals with no respect, and even mistreat them, when we are animals as well. I have three cats and a dog (all of them either shelter animals or we found them on the street) and I know they have incredibly strong feelings, much to many people’s disbelief. I love animals because I have had pets all my life, and I love wildlife in general mainly because of all of my trips to India.

December 2009: Way back in 2002, Uttara Mendiratta remembers being enthralled by the sight of two tiger cubs playing in the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh. A few years after that encounter, as a senior researcher with the Wildlife Protection Society of India, she was investigating tiger poaching on the basis of several reports that Panna was experiencing a high level of organised poaching.

It’s an old mistake. Lush tropical forests give people the erroneous impression that the land itself is rich. Therefore, when politicians and planners, unfamiliar with ecological realities, see standing forests they think to themselves: “Why waste this land on animals, when humans could use it more productively to grow food.” This is the basis on which the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 was passed