~ by Prameek Kannan (WWF-India)

The rusty-spotted cat is endemic to the Indian subcontinent; found in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Little is known about the ecology of this smallest of the world’s felids, and this combined with it’s rarity have warranted it being listed under ‘Schedule I,’ of the Wildlife Protection Act of India (1972). This is the same category of protection as the tiger and Asian elephant, which means that hunting or trading in it’s body parts can result in up to 7 years of incarceration for the guilty.
 
Until recently, it was considered as ‘Vulnerable,’ by the IUCN, but an increase in it’s occurrence records in different habitats in India and Nepal has seen it down-listed to ‘Near Threatened.’ However, even the most basic aspects of its biology, such as its habitat requirements, home range characteristics and diet remain unknown; these are crucial for conservation planning. A recent study provides a broad understanding of this species’ habitat preferences.

Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR) in the central Indian highlands is the site for this study. The reserve harbors a mosaic of vegetation types, including; meadows and woodlands in the valleys (dominated by Sal Shorea robusta), hilly tracts of dense mixed deciduous forests and hilly plateaus with extensive grasslands. It also contains numerous perennial streams and ponds that support swamp vegetation. Kanha is a heaven for a whole suite of globally threatened species such as the endangered tiger and dhole, and vulnerable leopard, gaur, sambar, four-horned antelope and endemic hard ground barasingha deer.

~ by Kalyanee Paranjape

Given the tumultuous history of conservation and establishment of national parks, it is important to note that protected areas continue to provide various benefits to the local population. These benefits are not just limited to providing ecosystem services but also have shown to alleviate poverty. Various scholars have discussed these benefits by analyzing the various types of capital but few have evaluated them in a single system.

A recent paper titled, “Contributions of financial, social and natural capital to food security around Kanha National Park in central India”, sheds more light of this. The researchers have utilized the five capitals model of sustainable development – including financial capital, social capital, natural capital, human capital, to clarify associations between certain livelihood factors and food access in the Kanha National Park (KNP) landscape. This framework has allowed the researchers to explore locally contextual links between livelihood characteristics and well-being while also providing a way to compare across time and geography. The authors have focused on food security as a multidimensional aspect of well-being.

The study took place in central India (yellow inset) surrounding Kanha National Park (dark grey polygon), surveyed households are demarcated by black dots.

The paper revolves around three aspects, the status of food security around KNP, how it varies across seasons and geography; and the contribution of the three capitals including finance, social and natural to household level food security. The team used semi structure interviews to extensively survey around 800 household across three seasons (summer, monsoon and winter) to capture seasonal changes of food security and livelihoods.