For years, the greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) was absent from Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve in Assam.
The rhino was once part of this ecosystem. Then, during the years of civil unrest and intense poaching in the late 1980s and 1990s, the population collapsed. By the mid-2000s, there were no rhinos left in Manas.
Today, there are about over 40 rhinos, according to reports. More importantly, they are breeding.
A decade-long study tracking 42 reintroduced rhinos found that the population had adapted to the landscape and produced calves. Between September 2012 and December 2021 alone, 35 calves were recorded in Manas.
That is the success story. But it is only half the story.
Because while rhinos are establishing themselves again, the grassland they depend on has been shrinking.
In 1990, grasslands accounted for 53.61% of the Manas Tiger Reserve. By 2019, that figure had fallen to 30.24%. The change represents a 23.37-percentage-point decline, or a relative loss of 43.59% of the grassland cover recorded in 1990.
A population rebuilt
The rhino’s disappearance from Manas was not the result of a slow, natural decline.
The International Rhino Foundation records that the species was extirpated from the park during the civil strife of the late 1990s. Earlier estimates put the population at more than 80 animals in the early 1990s. By the middle of the following decade, there were none.
The recovery began with Indian Rhino Vision 2020, a programme developed by the Assam Forest Department with WWF-India, the International Rhino Foundation and other partners.
The small cut on a rhino’s ear is more than a mark—it’s a testament to resilience and revival. These cuts identify the rhinos that were reintroduced to Manas National Park, each one carrying the victory of countless efforts that restored the park to its glory and led to its… pic.twitter.com/tK4eryoBrc
— Wildlife Institute of India (@wii_india) January 24, 2026
Its larger ambition was to spread Assam’s rhino population beyond its stronghold in Kaziranga and create additional viable populations. Manas became the first major target.
Rhinos were moved from Kaziranga National Park and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary. The programme’s records show wild-to-wild translocations, as well as the release of rescued and rehabilitated animals.
Rhino conservation initiatives at Manas National Park faced a major setback when eight adult rhinos were poached within a period of three years (2011 to 2014). Photograph: (nktv)
Nineteen were born to translocated females, nine to rehabilitated rhinos and five to females from the first generation born in Manas.
That last number is important because rhinos born in Manas are now themselves contributing to the population. For conservation biologists, breeding is one of the clearest signs that a reintroduced population is adapting to its new home.
But a population that grows naturally also creates a new obligation: the habitat must grow with it.
The grass beneath their feet
Manas’ alluvial grasslands are a defining part of the landscape and support rhinos alongside pygmy hogs, hispid hares, Bengal floricans, wild water buffalo and other grassland-dependent species.
The problem is that much of this habitat is changing.
Assam government data presented in 2026 show the scale of the shift: grassland cover fell from 53.61% in 1990 to 30.24% in 2019. Officials have linked the decline to a combination of invasive plants, natural succession, altered fire and flood regimes, overgrazing, declining herbivore populations and the disruption of conservation work during years of civil unrest.
Four decades of change have therefore produced an odd reversal.
The return of large herbivores is being celebrated at precisely the moment when the open habitats that support them are becoming harder to maintain.
Some of that change is natural. Grasslands do not remain static. Without disturbance, parts of them can gradually become dominated by shrubs and trees.
But Manas has another problem: invasive plants.
Chromolaena odorata, among other invasive species, has spread through grassland areas. The reserve’s management evaluation has also identified Leea crispa as a problem and recorded encroachment as a management weakness.
It identified about 36.78 sq km across four patches in the original core and first-addition areas as affected by encroachment.
The ecological question is therefore more complicated than “more grass equals more rhinos”.
The right grass in the right places matters. So does keeping those areas open.
So, how can the grassland issue be tackled?
“The local people have to be involved”
Dharanidhar Boro remembers Manas before its recovery became a conservation success story.
A retired forest official and conservationist, Boro has served as an Assistant Conservator of Forests and Ex-Deputy Director of the Manas Tiger Project.
He was posted in Manas during a period when the park was emerging from years of conflict, depleted protection and ecological damage.
“When I came, it was a good grassland,” he tellsThe Better India.
Then the Bodo movement intensified in the late 1990s. “The law-and-order situation was very bad. There was no staff in the forest,” he recalls.
The consequences were visible in the landscape itself.
The small cut on a rhino’s ear is more than a mark—it’s a testament to resilience and revival. These cuts identify the rhinos that were reintroduced to Manas National Park, each one carrying the victory of countless efforts that restored the park to its glory and led to its… pic.twitter.com/tK4eryoBrc
— Wildlife Institute of India (@wii_india) January 24, 2026
Boro remembers seeing invasive species such as shimul and Siam weed spreading through degraded grassland. Wildlife tourism had almost disappeared. Visitors were rare, infrastructure was poor, and protection systems had broken down.
Yet one encounter gave him a different way of reading the landscape.
“I heard the call of a deer one day, the mating sound of a swamp deer,” he recalls. He went towards a watchtower and eventually saw the animals.
For Boro, the sight was evidence that Manas was not finished. But bringing the animals back, he realised, would require more than forest staff.
“I realised the local people have to be involved. They have to understand the landscape.”
That became central to his approach.
Boro is from the Bodo community himself. He says that made conversations with residents easier; he could speak to them as someone who understood their community.
“I used to play flute and sing songs and get immersed in the people,” he says.
His point is straightforward. “The first thing is community involvement. Otherwise the grassland problem will never be solved.”
That logic also shaped the recovery of Manas. Community organisations became part of the conservation effort, while local people were increasingly brought into protection and tourism-related work.
Boro does not reject tourism. He sees it as part of the economic and conservation equation.
“But there should be checks. Not rampant,” he says. “Otherwise it is not possible to protect the wildlife, poaching and grassland.”
A plan already exists
Manas is not starting from zero on grassland restoration.
A Grassland Management Action Plan was finalised in November 2021 after park authorities and conservation organisations began working together on grassland restoration in 2017. Its major interventions were incorporated into the park’s working plans, including the Tiger Conservation Plan.
The plan is to map invasive alien plants, especially Chromolaena odorata; remove invasive species; restore degraded grassland; involve communities; and share restoration methods across the wider sub-Himalayan grassland landscape.
The idea is to make grassland restoration part of routine protected-area management rather than a temporary conservation project.
In June 2026, Assam inaugurated its first dedicated grass nursery at Manas’ Bansbari Range. About 16 native grass species collected from different habitats in Manas since November 2025 were being raised there. The nursery is intended to provide planting material for restoring degraded grasslands.
But restoration will have to compete with another force: changes in land use.
The land-use question
The Better India also looked into documents and records concerning land use, tourism infrastructure and management within the Manas landscape.
One case now before the Gauhati High Court concerns alleged encroachment in Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve, including the Kokilabari Seed Farm.
In August 2026, the court issued notices in a PIL concerning alleged unauthorised encroachments in areas including Panbari and Betbari. The petitioner, environment activist Rohit Choudhury, also raised the issue of the seed farm, where a large parcel of land was alleged to continue under cultivation under the Agriculture Department of the Bodoland Territorial Council.
The court directed authorities to ensure that no further encroachment takes place in the tiger reserve pending the next hearing, scheduled for 7 October 2026.
These are allegations before the court, not a final judicial finding.
For a landscape losing grassland, such questions go to the heart of what Manas is being managed for.
If a patch is inside the protected landscape but continues to be used for cultivation, how should its future be decided?
The tourism dilemma
Rohit Choudhury, an environmental activist who has previously raised legal and regulatory concerns relating to Manas, sees another pressure point: tourism infrastructure inside sensitive habitats.
In a conversation with The Better India, Choudhury highlighted what he described as violations of the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s 2012 Normative Standards for Tourism and Project Tiger Guidelines.
His concern centres on an eight-room tourist facility at Mothanguri. According to documents obtained through RTI and cited by Choudhury, the project was sanctioned at about Rs 5.6 crore, with Rs 4.3 crore released, and construction began in 2017.
Choudhury points to a 5 April 2022 communication from the Field Director of Manas Tiger Reserve to senior authorities. According to the document he shared, the Field Director’s office stated that the facility had been constructed within the core/critical tiger habitat and was not in conformity with provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, NTCA guidelines and earlier Supreme Court directions.
The letter, as cited by Choudhury, also stated that the facility had not begun operations and that using it for its intended purpose would add to the non-conformity.
Why is @mygovassam silent on encroachment in Manas National Park & Tiger Reserve? Where is the unwavering commitment to protecting one of India’s most iconic species..?? @jayanta_malla@byadavbjphttps://t.co/SpdE2C9SD3pic.twitter.com/PqwC4HCQMw
— Rohit Choudhury (@Rohitskaziranga) July 29, 2026
The NTCA’s 2012 guidelines sought to phase out night-stay tourism from core areas of tiger reserves. The Supreme Court’s 2018 directions also distinguished forest rest houses used by officials for conservation and management duties from facilities being used for tourism and night stays.
Choudhury argues that these principles should guide decisions in Manas as well.
The question is especially difficult in Manas because tourism can also support conservation and local livelihoods.
The answer, therefore, cannot simply be “no tourism”. It has to be: where, how much, and at what ecological cost?
The next test
Manas has already shown that conservation can reverse a local extinction.
The rhino was gone. It returned.
Now, can the park maintain the habitat between the forest, rivers and settlements? Can invasive plants be controlled before they replace native grasslands? Can tourism stay within ecological limits?
Boro’s prescription is to restore the grass, involve the people, and keep tourism under control.
The science points in the same direction. A rhino can return to Manas in a truck. But a functioning grassland cannot be delivered in crates.
