Indigenous tribes that worship tigers and helps protect the species

Today we celebrate Tigers Day during the Year of the Tiger.

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The Soligas tribe looks like they have it present every single day. These indigenous people may be helping protect endangered species from extinction.

Found in 13 Asian countries, tigers are endangered, primarily due to consumer demand for skin, bones and other body parts and the trade of live animals. In the last century alone, 97% of wild tigers have disappeared, with less than 4,000 remaining in the wild.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM lists the tiger as Endangered, with Malayan and Sumatran tigers classified as Critically Endangered.

Usually, spirituality isn't taken into account when making conservation decisions. However, native cultures that venerate wildlife might be contributing to the survival of threatened species.

The Bengal tiger is revered by the Soligas tribe of India's Western Ghats. According to Shadi Atallah, a natural resource economist in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois, their coexistence in India's Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve has contributed to the tiger population thriving.

Atallah initially became aware of the Soligas through a BBC piece that described how the tiger population increased twofold between 2010 and 2014 as a result of the tribe acquiring ownership of their ancestral territory.

Yubanet highlights the BBC piece, the indigenous tribe worships the tiger, which makes them the best environmentalists, claims Atallah.

"Nothing supporting that assertion could be found in the literature on conservation economics. Nothing explained the values of the spirituality ecological service."

Interestingly, different tribes from different regions in India worship tigers for their own unique reasons. The most common belief that tribal communities have about tigers is that they are their protectors. The Gond tribe of Madhya Pradesh, Garo tribe of Meghalaya, and Tulunadus of Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka regard tiger as their protector.

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