Connecting tigers. Wildlife corridors and national highways in India

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