The Price of Conservation: Tiger Population Growth and Microeconomic Outcomes in Buffer Zone Districts — Evidence from Madhya Pradesh

India's tiger population has recovered substantially since the launch of Project Tiger in 1973. As per the All-India Tiger Estimation (2022), India's tiger population is estimated at 3,682 individuals (range: 3,167–3,925), reflecting an approximate annual growth rate of around 6% and representing one of the world's most celebrated conservation recoveries. Madhya Pradesh alone hosts 785 tigers across six reserves. This paper asks whether the communities living adjacent to these reserves have shared in the gains. Using district-level data from the National Family Health Survey matched to reserve boundaries across all 51 districts of Madhya Pradesh, I compare welfare outcomes in buffer-zone districts against non-adjacent districts within the same state. Buffer districts display significantly higher child stunting (+5.2 percentage points), lower sanitation access (−10.0 pp), lower use of clean cooking fuel (−9.6 pp), and lower rates of institutional delivery (−5.6 pp). A Difference-in-Differences design exploiting the NFHS panel reveals that stunting declined 9.0 pp less in buffer districts between 2015–16 and 2019–21 relative to comparable districts, suggesting that the rest of Madhya Pradesh improved faster than its conservation frontier. A propensity-score falsification test confirms this divergence is specific to reserve-adjacent communities and is not an artefact of regional demographic variation. These findings are consistent with forest-dependency constraints, restricted land use, and unequal access to public services in buffer zones, and raise the question of whether India's conservation dividend is being distributed equitably.