BharatNotes What is Wildlife Corridors?
Wildlife corridors are strips or mosaics of habitat that connect larger, otherwise isolated habitat blocks or protected areas fragmented by human land use. They permit animals to move between populations to forage, disperse, find mates and migrate seasonally, thereby sustaining gene flow and reducing the risk of localised extinction. A corridor may be a continuous stretch of forest, a network of stepping-stone patches, or even a managed underpass beneath a highway.
In Indian law, "wildlife corridor" is not a separately notified protected-area category alongside national parks, sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves. Instead, corridors are recognised functionally — most notably through Section 38V of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, under which every Tiger Conservation Plan must address areas "linking one protected area or tiger reserve with another" to provide dispersal habitats and corridors.
Key Features and Legal Recognition
- Not a standalone legal category — corridors derive protection indirectly via Tiger Conservation Plans (Section 38V), Eco-Sensitive Zones, and forest/land-use prescriptions.
- Conservation & Community Reserves — introduced by the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2002 (Sections 36A-36D), these often act as buffers and connectors between core protected areas.
- Policy backing — the National Wildlife Action Plan (2017-2031) flags habitat fragmentation as a driver of human-wildlife conflict and prioritises corridor security.
Current Status (Tiger and Elephant Corridors)
| Corridor type | Number | Mapped by | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Major tiger corridors | 32 | NTCA & Wildlife Institute of India ("Connecting Tiger Populations for Long-term Conservation") | 2014 baseline |
| Elephant corridors | 150 | Project Elephant, MoEFCC, with WII | 2023 report |
The 2023 "Elephant Corridors of India" report (Project Elephant, MoEFCC, released Nov 2023) ground-validated 150 corridors across 15 elephant-range states and four regions — a rise of 62 corridors, about a 40% increase since 2010. The East-Central region holds the most at 35% (52 corridors), followed by the North-East at 32% (48); West Bengal alone accounts for 26 corridors (~17%). Earlier counts were 88 (Wildlife Trust of India / IFAW, 2005) and 101 (Right of Passage, 2nd edition, 2017).
For tigers, well-studied corridors include Kanha-Pench (Madhya Pradesh), Corbett-Rajaji (Uttarakhand), and Bandipur-Nagarahole (Karnataka) — the last bisected by highways, illustrating the threat from linear infrastructure.
UPSC Angle
Corridors sit at the intersection of conservation science, law and development. Examiners test whether aspirants can distinguish notified protected areas from functional corridors, link corridors to Project Tiger and Project Elephant, and evaluate trade-offs between linear infrastructure (roads, railways) and ecological connectivity. They also connect to mitigation measures — underpasses, overpasses and animal crossings — and to the broader debate on cooperative, landscape-level conservation beyond reserve boundaries. This is a foundation concept underpinning questions on biodiversity, habitat fragmentation and human-wildlife conflict.
