♪ HRISHITA: The Central India landscape supports one of the largest tiger populations in the world.

(tiger roaring) One of the downsides of having a great tiger population is the increasing number of conflicts that also take place.

(tiger growling) ♪ Advancements in technologies are an incredible way to help reduce the conflict.

♪ It is possible for these communities and tigers to coexist.

♪ ♪ I fell in love with tigers literally in my formative years.

I grew up in a tiger conservation landscape because of my dad being a field director for over 15 years.

So, I kind of grew up watching wild tigers.

My most fond memories are in the Jeep going around in the jungles where you're just completely in the moment looking at this beautiful, beautiful predator in front of you.

(Himmat speaking English) HRISHITA: Watching his passion for tigers unfold in front of my eyes was pretty inspiring.

NARRATOR: That inspiration ultimately led Hrishita Negi to pursue her Ph.D. at Clemson University, where she became a tiger herself.

She studies human-wildlife conflict resolution and is following in her father's footsteps.

(Himmat speaking English) NARRATOR: Hrishita's research has brought her to Madhya Pradesh in Central India, known as the Tiger State.

It's home to the largest tiger population in the country.

But their history here, and in India as a whole, is a fraught one.

It wasn't so long ago -- just in the early 1900s -- that an estimated 40,000 tigers roamed across India.

But as the human population boomed, nearly 95% of their range was lost.

Rampant hunting took a further toll.

HRISHITA: The hunting as well as a vermin extermination programs at the time contributed together into a very, very steep decline in the tiger numbers.

NARRATOR: By the 1970s, the species was on the brink.

So in 1972, the government passed the Wildlife Protection Act, banning the hunting of most animals, including tigers.

And just a year later, it launched a landmark initiative: Project Tiger.

The campaign was novel: the first network of tiger reserves to manage and protect the big cats.

(Himmat speaking English) NARRATOR: Today, there are 55 protected reserves and counting.

(Himmat speaking English) NARRATOR: Tigers need vast territories to survive, so conserving them also benefits other wildlife.

(Himmat speaking English) NARRATOR: In the fifty years since Project Tiger started, tiger numbers in India virtually doubled from around 1800 to some 3700 tigers today.

It's a positive trend, but it's happening in a country that is now home to 1.4 billion people - the most populous on Earth.

Here in Madhya Pradesh, tigers and people are even more concentrated within a 2300 square mile stretch of forest that also serves as a tiger superhighway.

HRISHITA: Kanha and Pench corridor is a corridor which exists between the two tiger reserves.

Two very important source areas for tigers.

NARRATOR: The cats have to move between reserves to find mates, prey, and new territory.

But local communities depend on this forest as well.

HRISHITA: The corridor also happens to have more than 700 villages.

NARRATOR: Over 2.7 million people and more than 300 tigers is a recipe for conflict.

HRISHITA: Human population in these landscapes along with livestock are increasing and so are the tiger numbers and there is going to be more and more spatial overlap.

(Himmat speaking English) ♪ ♪ HRISHITA: A lot of the households here primarily rely on raising livestock.

It's what they rely on for revenue generation and sometimes to supplement income.

So, livestock depredation is truly an economic loss for the communities.

NARRATOR: Hundreds of the villagers' animals are killed here each year.

(Ojin speaking Hindi) (Yasoda speaking Hindi) NARRATOR: The attacks have led to calls for retribution, but these calls are tempered by thousands of years of culture and tradition.

HRISHITA: Across India you'll find reverence and even kinship that communities find in a lot of wildlife species.

There are rituals that the community performs to be showing their gratitude to the tiger because they revere the tiger as a tiger deity.

You'll find amongst these indigenous communities some incredible definitions of tiger as a protector, which is so distinct from anywhere in the world.

NARRATOR: For Hrishita, this reverence provides a foundation for conflict resolution.

She and Himmat have been working with the villagers on a solution that protects both people and tigers.

HRISHITA: In communities that live at such close proximity to tigers, community engagement gives you an opportunity to hear about their challenges.

We also develop a sense of why it is important for these communities to care and conserve tigers.

NARRATOR: Together, they've developed a plan that relies on community collaboration and cutting-edge technology: artificial intelligence.

Piyush Yadav is one of the minds behind the tech known as TrailGuard AI.

PIYUSH: TrailGuard AI camera system is an AI powered camera.

NARRATOR: For the past few years, these AI-enhanced cameras have been deployed in five African countries, trained to detect humans to help combat wildlife poaching.

In that time, they've led to the arrest of 32 poachers.

Now, the team has brought the AI to India - and trained it to recognize tigers.

(camera shutter click) That's step one in an early warning system that feeds back to the villages.

HRISHITA: We demonstrate to them how the, the technology works and also how the cameras can possibly help in reducing the increasing conflicts that they face.

NARRATOR: TrailGuard AI works much like an ordinary camera trap, (camera shutter click) taking a photo whenever something passes by.

(camera shutter click) But the camera doesn't simply store the image.

It analyzes it.

(camera shutter click) PIYUSH: The AI intelligence that is available on the camera itself is able to differentiate between different species.

It could be a human, it could be a tiger.

NARRATOR: Working with the Forest Department, Piyush installs the cameras along trails that lead directly into the hardest-hit villages.

(insects trilling) PIYUSH: As soon as any motion happens in front of the camera, it captures the image.

NARRATOR: And sounds the alarm.

♪ HRISHITA: Once there is a trigger and if the AI classifies that image as a tiger, it would communicate that image.

You have a tiger presence that you've captured in a certain area.

NARRATOR: A real- time image of the tiger gets sent to the Forest Department.

PIYUSH: We are able to get this data from all the remote locations to the forest staff in under 30 seconds.

HRISHITA: The Forest Department would immediately alert our community steward.

NARRATOR: This person, chosen by the community, jumps into action.

(motorcycle engine revving) HRISHITA: His duty then is to alert his community members about where the tiger was spotted and what are the areas that they should potentially avoid.

(Anuj speaking Hindi) HRISHITA: The villagers can take an immediate action.

(sheep bleating) PIYUSH: If the villager is where there could be a potential threat to livestock, he can bring it back as soon as possible back to their houses.

♪ (sheep bleating) (Anuj speaking Hindi) PIYUSH: The response of villagers has been very positive for our technology.

Now, they're so confident about the technology that they are adjusting it to their own lifestyle.

(cows mooing) (Anuj speaking Hindi) NARRATOR: The warning system is working.

(camera shutter click) PIYUSH: We have positively ID'd 200 images of tigers (camera shutter clicks) and these location interestingly are not inside any deep forest area.

These locations are near the villages.

We have been seeing the coexistence of tigers and humans in this region for the past two years.

HRISHITA: We most definitely have seen a change in the reception of the community members after being told about the reason why TrailGuard is here and receiving those real time notifications of the tiger's presence.

Empowering the communities makes them feel that they are being part of the decision-making process, which is so important.

NARRATOR: With the success of the early warning system in Central India, the technology is now being put to use in West Bengal too, with encouraging results.

PIYUSH: We are deploying these cameras to create an early alert system to detect elephant in real time and alert the villagers.

NARRATOR: Whether it's elephants or tigers, humans or livestock, the AI technology is proving to be a powerful tool.

(Himmat speaking English) HRISHITA: With the advancements in technology to mitigate conflict, it is a pretty hopeful future for tiger numbers.

♪ PIYUSH: I completely believe that tigers and humans can and should coexist.

Any kind of wildlife species should coexist with humans because this is not humans' planet.

It is everyone's planet.

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