Sir

In your News Feature “The tiger's retreat” (Nature 441, 927–930; 2006) you highlight the differing approaches to the protection of India's rapidly diminishing tigers and biodiversity taken by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE).

Although strategies might differ, our ultimate goal is the same: to save as much biodiversity (including tigers) as possible.

In some areas, relocation of people out of protected areas, as advocated by Ullas Karanth of the Wildlife Conservation Society, may be the only option. In others, local communities can be effective allies and partners in conservation, as suggested by C. Madhegowda and Nitin Rai of ATREE. A heterogeneous world — and particularly a country such as India — needs multiple complementary approaches (K. S. Bawa, P. H. Raven and R. Seidler Conserv. Biol. 18, 859–860; 2004).

The threats to Indian biodiversity are varied, from invasive species and poaching to infrastructure development. The focus on local communities as major drivers of change, when they are often themselves victims of these pressures, precludes a consideration of the multiple factors degrading protected areas. And the focus on tigers runs the risk of pushing other important components of biodiversity conservation into the background. In addition to the external pressures, we have to worry about governance and policies.

Archaic governance can produce protected areas with no people but little biodiversity. Conversely, good governance can allow biodiversity in protected areas to flourish even with people in or around them. Integrated approaches to conservation, involving the participation of local people, will thus remain indispensable into the foreseeable future.