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Killing for Conservation in India

How one of the world’s greatest wildlife reserves has built its success on a hardline conservation policy that includes shooting suspected poachers

India is that rare thing in animal conservation - a success story. The country has seen the population of many endangered species including tigers and rhinos rise in recent years. Nowhere exemplifies that success better than Kaziranga National Park in the Indian state of Assam. This is where David Attenborough’s team came when they wanted to film the Greater One Horned Rhino for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ’s Planet Earth series. But as the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ’s South Asia correspondent Justin Rowlatt discovers, Kaziranga’s success is built on a hardline conservation approach that critics say has resulted in violence, forced evictions - and the deaths of 50 suspected poachers.

(Photo: A one-horned rhinoceros seen during an elephant safari in Kaziranga National Park in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam. Credit: Getty Images)

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27 minutes

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Mon 13 Feb 2017 07:06GMT

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