Research overview: village relocation from tiger reserves and conflict reduction

This overview reviews the contested practice of voluntarily relocating villages out of tiger-reserve cores in India to reduce human-tiger conflict and create inviolate breeding habitat. It synthesises evidence on how relocation can lower depredation, attacks, and prey competition while raising tiger densities, alongside serious social-justice concerns about displacement, compensation adequacy, livelihood disruption, and consent. The literature debates whether relocation is genuinely voluntary and equitable, and how outcomes vary with implementation quality. The survey frames village relocation as one of the most consequential and ethically fraught conflict-and-conservation interventions, balancing demonstrable ecological benefits for tigers against the rights and welfare of forest-dependent communities, and illustrating the deep human dimensions of large-carnivore conservation.