Human–Wildlife Conflict in Uttarakhand
By Asha Lal
Uttarakhand’s human–wildlife conflict can no longer be viewed simply as a “wildlife problem”. It is increasingly a crisis at the intersection of migration, abandoned agriculture, forest dependence, inadequate infrastructure and women’s safety.
The most disturbing aspect is its gendered cost.
For generations, women in the mountain villages have carried the responsibility of collecting fodder, firewood and forest produce, tending livestock and working agricultural fields. For many, the forest is not a wilderness they occasionally enter—it is an extension of the household economy.
That is why wildlife encounters disproportionately put women at risk.
The scale is alarming.
Forest Department-based research indicates that between 2000 and 2025, human–wildlife conflict in Uttarakhand resulted in approximately 954 deaths and 4,504 injuries. Leopards accounted for the highest number of fatalities, with 548 deaths, followed by elephants (230), tigers (106) and bears (70).
The situation has become particularly serious in recent years. Between 2020 and 2025 alone, 438 people died and 2,335 were injured in wildlife-related incidents.
Leopards remain the biggest threat to human life. Uttarakhand’s estimated leopard population has risen from 2,335 in 2008 to around 3,115, while scientific research has documented a significant number of attacks on people, particularly around human settlements.
But behind these statistics are ordinary livelihood activities—collecting grass, gathering firewood, tending cattle and walking between villages and fields.
Women are paying a disproportionate price.
Studies of fatal leopard attacks in Uttarakhand have highlighted the vulnerability of women who enter nearby forests for household needs.
The recent tragedy in Chamoli’s Pokhari area, where two women from the same family reportedly died following a bear encounter while collecting fodder, is a painful reminder.
They were not entering the forest for recreation or adventure. They were doing something essential to rural life: bringing home grass for cattle.
This raises a difficult question: How long should mountain women have to risk their lives simply to sustain their families?
The migration paradox.
Uttarakhand’s emptying villages add another dimension to the crisis.
Census-based analysis has recorded more than 1,000 uninhabited villages, while hundreds more have only a handful of residents. Large-scale migration has emptied many rural settlements and left agricultural terraces uncultivated.
As fields are abandoned, vegetation regenerates. Human activity becomes concentrated in fewer inhabited areas, while wildlife can move more easily through regenerating landscapes and village fringes.
Yet those who remain—often women, elderly people and families dependent on agriculture and livestock—continue to enter forests.
People are leaving the mountains, but the mountains are not necessarily becoming safer for those who stay.
This is the migration paradox that Uttarakhand’s policy framework must confront.
The invisible cost.
Official statistics count deaths, injuries and compensation claims. They rarely measure the economic value of the woman who has been lost.
When a woman dies, who collects the fodder? Who feeds the cattle, works the fields, cooks, cares for children and elderly family members, and manages the household?
Often, another woman takes over.
Thus, one wildlife death can create a continuing burden of unpaid labour for another woman.
This invisible cost must become part of the policy conversation.
From compensation to prevention.
Compensation after a death is necessary, but it cannot be the primary strategy.
Uttarakhand needs a women-centred human–wildlife conflict strategy for mountain villages, including:
* Community fodder plots and seasonal fodder banks closer to settlements
* Mapping of high-risk forest paths used by women
* Real-time village-level wildlife alerts and early-warning systems
* Stronger lighting and safer access routes
* Rapid-response teams in identified conflict hotspots
* Livelihood and agricultural revival programmes that reduce compulsory forest dependence
* Better healthcare and emergency transport in remote villages
* Compensation that recognises long-term household livelihood loss, not merely the immediate financial claim
Most importantly, migration policy and wildlife policy cannot remain separate.
A village losing its population is simultaneously facing demographic, agricultural, economic, social and ecological change. Reviving agriculture, improving roads and healthcare, creating local employment, restoring abandoned terraces and managing wildlife corridors must therefore be part of one integrated mountain-development strategy.
A different definition of development.
Uttarakhand’s development cannot be measured only through highways, tourism numbers and urban expansion.
A genuinely developed mountain state must ensure that a woman does not have to risk her life to collect grass for her cattle; that an elderly villager is not left without emergency support; and that families do not lose their primary livelihood provider to an avoidable wildlife encounter.
No village should have to become empty before the state notices that something has gone wrong.
Human–wildlife conflict is ultimately a question of human security, women’s safety and sustainable mountain development.
Uttarakhand needs a new social contract between people, forests and wildlife—one that protects biodiversity without sacrificing the lives and livelihoods of the communities that have lived alongside these forests for generations.
A truly sustainable Uttarakhand is one where forests are protected, villages remain alive, and no woman has to risk her life to sustain her family.
(Dr Asha Lal is President (Women), All India Freedom Fighters Samiti, Delhi.)
