In May 2025, Jenu Kuruba families reoccupied their ancestral land in which of the following tiger reserves of India?

Correct option is B

The correct answer is: (B) Nagarahole Tiger Reserve

• In May 2025, around 50–52 families of the Jenu Kuruba tribal community reoccupied their ancestral land inside the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve in Karnataka.

• These families were evicted nearly 40 years ago in the mid-1980s as part of conservation-driven displacement.

• Their action, beginning on May 5, 2025, marked a landmark assertion of forest rights under the Forest Rights Act, placing their ancestral haadis (settlements) back within the protected area.

• The Jenu Kuruba are classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), renowned as "honey gatherers" with deep ecological and spiritual ties to the forest.

• Their reoccupation underscores the tension between traditional Indigenous forest stewardship and the fortress conservation model that excludes local communities.

• They invoked the Forest Rights Act (2006) and, in a Gram Sabha (May 20, 2025), reasserted community claims, including building a signboard asserting self-governance of their land.

• Option A – Hemis National Park: Located in Ladakh.

• Option C – Manas National Park: In Assam.

• Option D – Sariska National Park: In Rajasthan.