Résumés
This article focuses on a long-standing legal battle fought by environmentalists and lawyers in India who opposed a plan of the regional government of Uttarakhand (Himalayan India) to build a highway near a region that is home to the last ecological corridor for tigers and elephants between two major parks. This ethnographic study shows how the Indian State manages the tension between the role it has claimed since Independence in promoting the conservation of emblematic species, in particular tigers, and its political will (often related to electoral and economic interests) to develop the country’s road network. On the one hand, the scientific experts responsible for assessing these road projects are de facto under the government’s control, which often leads them to propose compromises or align themselves with what is known as the ecology of reconciliation. On the other hand, while the judicialisation of the controversy multiplies the fronts and strategies of confrontation – the creation of parallel committees of experts, procedural manoeuvres, diversification of decision-making, and media coverage – this also leaves the outcome of the case open to the vagaries of individual choices and the impact of the balance of power between the institutions involved
Cet article porte sur une bataille judiciaire prolongée, menée en Inde par des écologistes et des avocats pour s’opposer au projet du gouvernement régional de l’Uttarakhand (Inde himalayenne) de construire une autoroute sur le site du dernier corridor écologique de tigres et d’éléphants entre deux grands parcs de la région. L’étude ethnographique de cette controverse montre comment l’Etat indien gère la tension entre le rôle qu’il revendique depuis l’indépendance de promouvoir la conservation d’espèces emblématiques, en particulier des tigres, et sa volonté politique (souvent non dépourvue d’enjeux électoraux et économiques) de développer les infrastructures routières du pays. D’une part, l’expertise scientifique chargée d’évaluer ces projets routiers est de facto sous le contrôle du gouvernement, ce qui conduit souvent les scientifiques à proposer des solutions de compromis ou à s’aligner sur l’écologie dite de réconciliation. D’autre part, si la judiciarisation de la controverse multiplie les fronts et les stratégies d’affrontement – création de comités d’experts parallèles, manœuvres procédurales, diversification de la prise de décision, médiatisation – elle laisse l’issue de l’affaire ouverte aux aléas des choix individuels et des rapports de force entre les institutions impliquées.
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Plan
Introduction
Tiger source population and gene flow
Government promises and management policy
Engaging against the road
Standing committee and ’greenwashing’
Dodging the issue of tiger safaris
Final remarks
Aperçu du début du texte
Introduction
The long-standing tension between wildlife conservation and infrastructure development has intensified in recent years as conservationists have realised that to save endangered species from extinction, it is not only necessary to keep them within a protected area, but also to allow them to disperse into surrounding forest areas to promote gene flow. As Barua (2022: 37) notes, the shift from a model of conservation which focuses on confinement to one that favours mobility is at the heart of the development of what Rosenzweig has called “reconciliation ecology”, a branch of conservation biology that aims to preserve species diversity in areas inhabited by humans without preventing people from using the land. The idea of reconciliation is closely linked to infrastructure management (Rosenzweig 2003) and it is at the heart of how many ecologists conceptualise linear infrastructures that cross wildlife corridors. Barua points out that while infrastructures were once “deemed a...
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Référence papier
Daniela Berti, « Connecting tigers. Wildlife corridors and national highways in India », Civilisations, 73 | 2024, 89-104.
Référence électronique
Daniela Berti, « Connecting tigers. Wildlife corridors and national highways in India », Civilisations [En ligne], 73 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2029, consulté le 12 mars 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/civilisations/8457 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15j2j
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Auteur
Daniela Berti is a social anthropologist and research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and conducts fieldwork in India. Over the last years, her research has focused on animal protection and animal rights issues, the management of threatened or invasive species, and rewilding practices, drawing in particular on the ethnography of court cases. She is the project coordinator of the five-year project (2020-2025) titled “Ruling on Nature: Animals and the environment before the Court” (RULNAT-ANR-19-CE03-006), funded by the French National Research Agency. She has co-edited several volumes and journal issues, including Animal sacrifice, religion and law in South Asia (with A. Good, 2023), Regimes of legality. Ethnography of criminal cases in South Asia (with D. Bordia, 2015), Of doubt and proof (with A. Good & G. Tarabout, 2015), “The frontiers of law” (with G. Tarabout, Diogenes, 2015).
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