Julian Matthews, Founder Chairman, TOFTigers issued the following statement:

Wild tigers in India are up 33% to just under 3000 – in the All India Tiger Census 2019 – published on Global Tiger Day. We are all celebrating the great news, with huge congratulations to the park officials and forest guardians, who have done so much to achieve this outcome.

However some credit must go to the ‘Tigernomics’ behind conservation, that has been critical to this turnaround, and that comes largely in the form of nature based tourism – a ‘living tiger’ dependent economy. So we at TOFTigers are also celebrating your involvement in this success.

The relationship between the boom in India’s nature tourism to many of the best performing tiger parks and the growth in tiger numbers is all too clear. India’s nature tourism is providing the wood that is burning the conservation flames, providing new rural job, new livelihoods and business opportunities, enhancing many park budgets from visitor fees and taxes for Government coffers, uplifting rural education achievements, rural health and reducing rural poverty. All this to bordering communities who historically were the victims of wildlife conflicts. Lastly and crucially it has also provided millions of travellers, like yourself, with the opportunity to see and fall in love with your natural heritage and advocate for its ongoing support and protection.