Suvrat Kher has some advice for policy makers: their culture needs to change from ‘viewing forests and wildlife as a resource to be exploited, as some obstacle to development’.

Another big danger besides the increasing human wildlife conflict is climate change. Today’s conservation plans are drawn on the assumption that the current ecological boundaries will remain so for the foreseeable future. But what if in response to shifting climatic belts, ecological boundaries also shift? This is an imminent danger facing India. Our current conservation plans are barely able to cope with problems of human encroachment into forest areas by rehabilitation and relocation plans for humans. What will happen if forests further fragment in response to climate change and ecological belts move? Where will the animals go?