Jharkhand Journal of Development and Management Studies XISS, Ranchi, Vol. 18, No.3 & 4, July-December 2020, pp. 8553-8570 ROLE OF PROTECTED AREAS IN DEVELOPING LOCAL ECONOMY: A CASE INVOLVING KANHA TIGER RESERVE, INDIA Shamli Sood 1 , Shweta Sharma 2 & Pradeep Chaudhry 3 About five percent of the geographical area of India is covered by protected areas (PAs) consisting of 105 national parks, 544 wildlife sanctuaries, 46 community reserves and 77 conservation reserves. Some of these PAs have been declared as tiger reserves, where sufficient tiger presence is there and habitat is suitable for the animal. Project tiger was launched by the Government of India in the year 1973 to save the endangered species of tiger in the country. Starting from 9 reserves in 1973, the number is grown up to 50 in 2019. A total area of 71,027.10 km2 is covered by these project tiger areas. It is worth mentioning that more than 50% of world’s tigers reside in Indian forests and project tiger has turned out to be one of the most successful wildlife conservation projects in the world and applauded for the dedication and professionalism of all those involved. Studies related to the assessment of the local economy around these reserves are very limited in the country and the present case study is a small step towards this direction. The total expenditure of tourists coming to Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR) is approximately Rs.120 Cr. (USD 16mn). However, tourism is not isolated from other sectors. Considering the linkages between industries and the multiplier effect of 2 times, the economic contribution of KTR is Rs.240 Cr. (USD 32mn). Of all the tourist expenditure, approximately Rs.59.8 Cr. (USD 8.3 mn) is going into resorts employing estimated 1312 people. 291554 man-days of work were generated for daily wage workers inside Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR). A lot more needs to be done at communities’ level as local benefits are limited in comparison to profit earned by big hotel and resort owners. From community participation to education & skill development, from infrastructure creation to awareness campaigns, there is a lot of effort needed on the part of the park authorities. Keywords : Protected Areas, National Parks, Biodiversity Conservation, Livelihood Generation Introduction India is one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, supporting high biological diversity on one hand and high densities of people and livestock on the other (Mittermeier & Mittermier, 2005; Karanth & DeFries, 2010). There are 771 protected areas (PAs) in India spread over an area of 162,099.47 km 2 , covering about 4.93% of the country’s 8553 1 Indian Institute of Forest Management, Nehru Nagar, Bhopal, India - 462003. Email: shamlisood7@gmail.com; ssood20@iifm.ac.in 2 Indian Institute of Forest Management, Nehru Nagar, Bhopal, India - 462003. 3 Indian Institute of Forest Management, Nehru Nagar, Bhopal, India - 462003.