Manas Saved Its Tigers and Lost Its Grass: The Habitat Nobody Counts

Article summary

The shrinking grasslands of Manas Tiger Reserve were raised in the Assam Legislative Assembly on 6 July 2026, with the state government setting out its conservation response. Survey data show grassland cover in the reserve fell from 53.61 per cent in 1990 to 30.24 per cent in 2019 — an absolute loss of 23.37 percentage points and a relative decline of roughly 43.6 per cent over 29 years — with fourteen invasive plant species, notably Chromolaena odorata and Mikania micrantha, identified among the principal drivers alongside woody encroachment, embankment construction and past civil unrest. In June 2026 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee separately flagged that invasive species continue to degrade the property's grassland–woodland ecosystem. The state told the Assembly that about 609 hectares of degraded grassland were restored between 2022 and 2025 under a French-funded project and the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme. The case matters beyond Assam because it inverts the usual conservation story: Manas recovered its tigers and rhinos after insurgency-era losses, yet the habitat those and rarer species depend on has been quietly disappearing — grassland being the ecosystem India protects least and counts least.