DURHAM, N.C. – At the Nicholas School’s Recognition Ceremony for 2008 graduates on May 10, Dean Bill Chameides awarded the first Dean’s Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student Manuscript to Krithi Karanth.

Karanth, a PhD student, was honored for a groundbreaking study she wrote examining the controversial use of human resettlement in Indian tiger reserves.

The study, “Making Resettlement Work: The Case of India’s Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary,” was published in the October 2007 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Biological Conservation, as one of the first detailed cases on the factors affecting the success or failure of human resettlements in tiger reserves.  

The Dean’s Award is a new initiative developed by Chameides to recognize outstanding student scholarship. The award will be given each year to a student enrolled in the Nicholas School’s PhD programs (Environment and Earth and Ocean Sciences) who has a manuscript accepted or published in a peer-reviewed journal. Manuscripts are judged on disciplinary rigor, originality and likely depth of contribution to the advancement of their field.

Award recipients receive a $3,000 prize and their name is placed on a plaque hung in Hug Commons.

In her winning paper, Karanth found that the controversial practice of relocating people who live in tiger reserves in India to settlements outside the protected areas is a “workable conservation solution” that can benefit both the endangered cats and the resettled humans, provided that key conditions are met. 

“Relocation is a viable conservation tool – if it is done with the active consultation of the people being resettled,” she says. “They must be given a voice in the decision-making process. They can’t be forced out or denied fair compensation.” Substantial financial support needs to be available to them for up to a year after the move. And there needs to be long-term involvement by governmental and nongovernmental organizations that are committed to the relocated people’s success. 

“Resettlement is not a quick fix that you can throw a little money at and then forget,” Karanth says. “It is an investment in the future – a long-term solution that requires conscientious follow-up and commitment.”

Village resettlements to promote tiger conservation date back to the 1960s in India, but few studies before this have documented the impacts the practice has on the resettled people.

To research her paper, Karanth examined the experiences of 419 households who voluntarily moved to two villages located outside the Bhadra reserve.  She interviewed 61 percent of the households during the relocation in 2002, and interviewed 55 percent of them again in 2006. She also interviewed individuals from governmental and nongovernmental agencies involved in the resettlement effort.
“The goal of my research is to provide insights for conservation practice relevant to implementing these resettlement efforts, and addressing the short-term and mid-term successes and challenges relocated people face,” she says.

In India, five million people live inside nature reserves and 147 million people are dependent on resources the reserves provide.

Karanth’s faculty advisors are Norman L. Christensen, professor of ecology and founding dean of the Nicholas School, and Stuart L. Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology.

“Krithi’s study helps fill in some very critical gaps in our understanding of why resettlement efforts succeed or fail,” Pimm says. “It will help reduce conflicts and lead to better outcomes for humans and tigers alike.”