By Dr. Corinne Taylor-Smith | Project Leader
In the last 18 months we have only received two donations towards our Education project (in December 2024 and March 2025) so expanding our education project in the ways which we had hoped and planned to do has proved impossible. We are very grateful to the kind donor who made both the donations, and gave us hope that things will improve soon, thank you.
Fundraising for all our projects continues to present challenges as the Global cost-of-living crisis has hit hard and new sanctions on overseas aid from the USA continue to roll out. Nonetheless, we are very grateful for our loyal supporters and as we need you more than ever in these tough times if we are to continue to give the wild tigers the wild future which they deserve.
Thank you for taking the time to read this project report, your lasting support means the world to us.
Halting Our Education Programme is not an Option
Despite the fundraising challenges we face we plan to roll-out replacement forest safety banners in the villages where existing ones have been damaged or worn out AND to distribute at least 100 education packs to the most needy children in the villages around Bandhavgarh most impacted by human-wildlife conflict. We would love to do much more but without the necessary funds, we will need to look at other ways to help. Our talks with the Corbett Foundation which commenced in 2024 will continue, as will our partnership with local NGO-GTCS in Bandhavgarh.
These collaborations will gain greater importance as wild tiger territory expands as does the need for forest safety education as wild tigers, leopards, elephants, bears and other wildlife establish their new homes alongside people who haven’t encountered predators and wild elephants for many years, if at all.
In our most recent reports, we highlighted the increase in human-wildlife conflict with people being attacked by elephants, leopards and tigers in addition to other wildlife, and the sad news of retaliatory attacks on elephants and tigers. People can live in harmony with wild tigers and wild elephants, but they need to know how to do this safely. Forest Safety Education programmes and education for the children in the villages are fundamental to delivering the tools which bring this harmony and ensure that wild tigers will have the habitat and protection they need in the future too.
Education is vital for Wild Tiger Conservation
Put simply, education is the only way that wild tigers will have a long-term wild future, without it their future is very bleak. Why? Without education there will be no local people qualified to become tiger protectors and conservationists but there will be many who know how to trap and kill the wildlife which kills their livestock and raids their crops! These are the same animals which compete for the scarce forest resources which are frequently plundered by those who do not understand the wider impact of their actions. The human population is growing at a phenomenal rate, and thus needs more food, sadly without education these people don’t know the pressure this causes on both the forest and the planet.
Education has a critical role in the transformation of rural India, where Bandhavgarh National Park and many other wild tiger territories are. It addresses socio-economic disparities and fosters sustainable development, which is essential for preventing the destruction of critical wild tiger habitat. Many villages don’t have a school, so children need to walk through tiger habitat to get to school in the nearest village (often 10km/7,5 miles away), whilst other villages have schools which lack basic facilities such as classrooms, desks, chairs, libraries and sanitation. A lack of electricity and the absence of textbooks and internet access hampers the learning environment, whilst the absence of basic writing materials frequently prevents children from even attending school. Poverty can mean that families prioritise work over education for their children, which may satiate immediate economic needs but impairs the long-term benefits of education for those children.
Education enhances the employability and income potential for rural children living with wild tigers, which in turn contributes to poverty reduction. Educated children are more likely to be able to grow up and adopt better agricultural practices and technologies, which will boost productivity without adversely affecting their forest surroundings.
Education Empowers People too
Education empowers people to participate in economic and social activities; it helps to break the cycle of poverty and improves overall quality of life. Educated people make informed health decisions and can access healthcare. Education raises awareness about hygiene, nutrition and lifestyle choices which also encourage improved healthier lives. Education helps children to learn about the environment which surrounds them and how to protect it, and the impact this will have on the world around them. Without continued investment in and support for education in rural communities: sustainable development and socio-economic growth will be impossible which can spell disaster for the long-term survival of wild tigers and their forest home. Please help us to secure a long-term future for wild tigers via education, by donating whatever you can afford as soon as possible, tomorrow may be too late. https://goto.gg/32565.
All Tigers4Ever projects have interdependencies as our unique 3-tiered approach to ensure that wild tigers will have a wild future is effected and involves the communities who live with wild tigers AND who want to ensure that wild tigers survive too. Without support from the wider tiger community, our efforts to protect wild tigers and their precious forest habitat will be in vain. Our projects to reduce human-wildlife conflict, our forest rehabilitation project, our anti-poaching patrols and our education projects are crucial to ensuring that wild tigers will have a wild future living harmoniously alongside the people whose ancestors have been guardians of the forest for centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century, 100000 wild tigers roamed the earth living alongside 1.65 billion people with both giving the other space to thrive. In 2025, there are only 5574 wild tigers and an estimated 8.1 billion humans with much less space for the wildlife to roam.
If humans and wild animals can’t live alongside each other in harmony, then the future for wild tigers is very bleak. This is why forest safety education and school education projects are priorities alongside everything else we do. In addition, we need more solutions to address the increase in human-wildlife conflict which threatens to undermine the success we have had to date in boosting wild tiger numbers!
The Local Community will provide Future Tiger Protectors
Our current generation of conservationists and wild tiger protectors won’t be around forever. So, for wild tigers to be around forever, we need to plan for their future protection too. We can’t ignore the thousands of children living alongside wild tigers who need our help, because we will need them to become the next generation of wild tiger protectors. Without education, it will be almost impossible for them as they will become dependent on the land and forest to survive, cutting down more trees to create more firewood and farmland without knowing the impact of their actions.
We need to help them now, before it is too late. In 2024, we gave educational opportunities to just 100 children living alongside wild tigers (compared to 820 in 2023) and with our Forest Safety Education programme we helped the people of 105 villages to be safe when encountering wildlife too. Our anti-poaching patrolling Team continues to deliver safety education talks and resources to the people they encounter in the forest with the hope of keeping both them and the wildlife safe.
The biggest threats to life for wildlife and humans in Bandhavgarh still come from four main species: Tigers, Elephants, Snakes and Leopards. Sloth bear attacks are less frequent. As previously highlighted, our collaboration with the Corbett Foundation enables us to share our Forest Safety Education materials and reciprocally they share their safety information on sloth bear encounters. This sharing of resources and workload will help to ensure best use of precious funds and ensure that Forest Safety Education can reach a wider audience too.
We need to help the poorest rural children living around Bandhavgarh, so we continue to try to raise sufficient funds to enable the maximum number of children to go to school each year: To give them the best chance of becoming future wild tiger protectors rather than the devastating alternative. There are more tigers and more elephants living in and around Bandhavgarh now, so the risk of retaliatory attacks on wildlife is too high for us not to prioritise forest safety education and anti-poaching patrols! By ensuring that people know how to protect themselves and keep wildlife safe, we hope that such attacks and human-wildlife conflict can reduce.
It would be amazing to know that you’ve helped us to keep thousands of wild animals safe thanks to our latest education projects, would it not?
If you can help us provide essential education training and resources, your gift today will make a huge difference: https://goto.gg/32565
The Record so Far
We have helped 3400 children living with wild tigers in 34 villages gain access to education, so we still have a lot more to do. Thousands of children desperately need your help too! https://goto.gg/32565. We want to ensure that the future generations of Bandhavgarh will protect the forest and its wild tigers as our team in India and our anti-poaching patrols do now. To do this, we need your help to fund vital education resources today. For every £1400 (US$1900) we raise, we can provide educational resources for 450 children living with wild tigers to give them the best chance of becoming the next generation of tiger protectors in Bandhavgarh. (https://goto.gg/32565).
Your support for our work is amazing. We can’t keep wild tigers safe without it. We hope that we can provide a brighter future for some of Bandhavgarh’s poorest children and future generations of wild tigers. Please support our education projects in Bandhavgarh by starting a new monthly recurring donation from just £5 (US$8) per month, if you can, as it will make a huge difference each year: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/education-saves-tigers/?show=recurring. It is never too late to make a difference
In Bandhavgarh, for the thousands of young children with no access to schooling, without computers or mobile phones, without electricity in their homes, a bleak future awaits. These are the children who Tigers4Ever has always tried to help with books and basic writing materials to give them hope. With your help we can give them a chance which otherwise they may not have. Remember: when we provide education packs and scholarships for children living with wild tigers, we reduce the risk of future tiger habitat destruction AND ensure that these children will have a chance to become tiger protectors in future.
Thank you for your generosity and support on behalf of the wild tigers, which we are keeping safe; on behalf of the children who we have helped to get an education (and their families who have food because of this help); and on behalf of the wider tiger community in Bandhavgarh, which benefits from providing books and writing materials for inclusion in the education packs which we distribute; and also the safety education training materials we are using.
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