Manas Wildlife Sanctuary Came Off UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger on 21 June 2011, and the World Heritage Committee's July 2026 Decision Notes a Clear Upward Trend in Its Key Species and No New Farm Encroachment

On 21 June 2011, during its 35th session in Paris, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee took Manas Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam off the List of World Heritage in Danger. The site had been on that list since 1992. UNESCO’s announcement that day said significant improvements in preservation had allowed the withdrawal, and IUCN, which advises the Committee on natural sites, said it followed its advice.

Manas covers 39,100 hectares at the foot of the Himalayas, on both banks of the Manas river, along the border with Bhutan’s Royal Manas National Park. It is the core of the 283,700-hectare Manas Tiger Reserve. UNESCO inscribed it in 1985 under three natural criteria, for its scenery, its river-fed habitats and its threatened species, among them the tiger, the greater one-horned rhino, the swamp deer, the pygmy hog and the Bengal florican.

The Committee’s latest decision on Manas was adopted at its 48th session in Busan in July 2026. It notes with appreciation that monitoring of key species in the site indicates “a clear upward trend in populations”, and it acknowledges that there is no further agricultural encroachment inside the property.

Why Manas went on the Danger List in 1992

UNESCO’s own record gives two reasons for the 1992 listing: insurgency that destroyed park infrastructure, and the loss of forest habitat and wildlife. IUCN’s 2011 statement adds that the rhino was eradicated during a decade-long insurgency. UNESCO’s news item of January 2011 says the rhino population was wiped out by poaching between 1989 and 1992.

Dialogue Earth, which was known as The Third Pole when it ran the story in 2021, reported that violent clashes between the Assam government and insurgents seeking a separate Bodo state began in 1987 and went on for more than two decades. Insurgents sheltered in the forest, and security forces often could not enter. Amal Chandra Sarmah, the field director of Manas National Park, told the outlet that forest camps were attacked, arms were snatched and 14 forest staff were killed, and that the forest department ran its office from Barpeta Road, about 20 kilometres away. He put the park’s rhinos before 1989 at around 70 and said all of them were killed.

What changed after 2003

The turn came with the Bodoland Territorial Council accord of 2003, an agreement between the Government of India and insurgent groups that created a semi-autonomous council for the region. IUCN’s outlook notes that under that agreement the council holds executive, administrative and financial powers over forests, and that it has been a provider of funds and resources for Manas. Dialogue Earth reported that forest officials and guards moved back into the park once the council was formed.

The test the Committee set

At its 2008 session in Quebec City, after a joint mission by UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre and IUCN, the Committee said that viable populations of all key species, with a clear upward trend, were key elements of the condition it wanted before removing Manas from the Danger List. It noted that the mission that year found recovery had only just started.

The January 2011 mission, which visited the park from 24 to 31 January, found much more. The 2011 state of conservation document sets out what the mission and the Indian authorities reported:

• 16 of the 42 ranger posts had been renovated and all 42 were operating. An 8-kilometre electric fence stood along the southern border, and the mission found the roads and bridges in good condition.
• In the Panbari Range, where logging and poaching had been the worst problem, a range office and seven anti-poaching camps were working. The State Party said logging and poaching were now apparently very low, and the mission recorded no obvious incident during its visit.
• The Manas Tiger Conservation Foundation, a body set up in 2009 so that central government money could reach the park directly, existed, though that direct flow had not yet been approved.

The mission’s conclusion was that significant progress had been made and that the recovery of the site’s Outstanding Universal Value, the set of qualities for which UNESCO lists it, had “progressed significantly and is now well under way”. The Committee’s decision 35 COM 7A.13 repeated that finding and then removed the site from the Danger List.

The same decision set tasks for afterwards: put an integrated monitoring system in place, carry out a recovery plan for the eastern swamp deer, finish the rhino reintroduction, draw up a tourism plan with local communities and make the foundation operational, with a report due by 1 February 2012. Tim Badman, then director of IUCN’s World Heritage Programme, said in the press release: “The Sanctuary is on a good track, but the work and funding to secure its future need to be sustained.”

The rhinos came back first

Reintroduction was already under way when the Committee voted. The Indian Rhino Vision 2020 programme, run by the Assam Forest Department, the Bodoland Territorial Council, WWF-India and the International Rhino Foundation with support from other agencies, had been working since 2005 to move wild rhinos back to parks that had lost them. UNESCO’s news item of 4 January 2011 reports that a mother and a female calf were moved from Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary to Manas on 29 December 2010, taking the rhino count in Manas to seven. Pobitora is one of two donor parks; the other is Kaziranga, which has its own account in Kaziranga National Park: the one-horned rhino count and the floodplain it protects.

Mongabay India reported in May 2026 that 22 rhinos from Kaziranga and Pobitora were translocated to Manas between 2008 and 2021, and that 20 rehabilitated rhinos from the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation were released there between 2006 and 2021. The programme’s final translocation, a male and a female from Pobitora, took place in April 2021, according to the International Rhino Foundation’s post of 13 April 2021.

The counts the Indian authorities gave UNESCO in 2024 were 38 rhinos in 2020-21, 40 in 2021-22 and 47 in 2022-23. The Rhino Foundation put the population at 49 after the April 2021 move. A study of the population between 2012 and 2021 recorded 35 births, Mongabay India reported. IUCN’s outlook records that 10 rhinos were lost to poaching between 2011 and 2016 and that no rhino poaching incident has been recorded since 2016. On 17 June 2026, Assam’s chief minister and forest minister said Manas had recorded no rhino or tiger poaching for three consecutive years, as reported by ANI.

The researchers behind that study say the population has not yet reached its full breeding potential, because early poaching killed several adult males and a small population can face inbreeding. Yadvendradev Jhala, a former dean at the Wildlife Institute of India, told Mongabay: “The reintroduction has been remarkably successful but should not be viewed with complacency since it can easily be reversed.”

Tigers, swamp deer and the other counts

Tigers in Manas have been counted by camera trap each year since 2010 by the Assam Forest Department with the conservation group Aaranyak and WWF-India, according to Dialogue Earth. The park’s director told PTI in June 2021 that the count was 10 in 2010, 30 in 2020 and 46 in the 2021 census; Dialogue Earth, citing the same surveys, gave 11 for 2011 and 48 for 2021. A 2023 national tiger status report recorded 57 tigers in the Manas Tiger Reserve, the Indian authorities told UNESCO in February 2024, and the Committee noted a population increasing since 2006. These figures cover different areas and years, so the trend is the safer reading than any single number. How the national estimates are made is explained in India counts its tigers with camera traps.

The swamp deer was the weakest point in 2011. The mission cited non-government reports of 12 to 16 animals in the property, too few, it said, to guarantee the species’ survival there. A project led by Wildlife Trust of India, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Assam Forest Department then moved eastern swamp deer from Kaziranga. The first batch of 19 was captured in December 2014 and held in a predator-proof enclosure at Manas. It was released into the wild in August 2016 after giving birth to five fawns, and the herd settled in the Kuribheel grassland. A second batch of 17 followed in February 2017. Wildlife Trust of India reported that about a thousand eastern swamp deer were then left in a single population, at Kaziranga. The park’s director told PTI in 2021 that 129 swamp deer were recorded that year against 99 the year before.

The pygmy hog’s return, with 54 released into the property by 2023 on UNESCO’s count, is told in the pygmy hog breeding programme and its June 2026 release at Manas.

Staff, money and boundaries

In its 2024 report the Indian side told UNESCO that 48 Eco-Development Committees, village bodies meant to address livelihoods and conflict with wildlife, had been formed around the reserve, and in November 2025 it reported the recruitment of 182 new positions. IUCN’s 2025 outlook says funding has improved since the Manas Tiger Conservation Foundation began receiving support from ecotourism, while a shortage of qualified staff remains. A carbon-finance agreement signed by the foundation, the National Tiger Conservation Authority and The Energy and Resources Institute had yet to start field activities when the State Party reported on 21 November 2025.

The inscribed area is still the 1985 sanctuary of 39,100 hectares. The 2011 mission noted that it was enlarged to 50,000 hectares and designated a national park in 1990, and that this change was never put to the Committee. In 2011 the Committee encouraged India to consider extending the site, including by 36,000 hectares proposed by the Bodoland council. A request for a minor boundary change was referred back to India in 2017, and the 2026 decision asks for an update on it.

What the Committee is still asking for

The 2026 decision reads as a list of continuing work. India told the Committee that nearly half of the grassland in the national park and tiger reserve has been lost to invasive plants, among them Leea, Chromolaena odorata and Mikania micrantha. UNESCO’s advisers noted this is a large rise from a 2014 to 2018 study, which found 20 percent of the grasslands severely affected. The Committee records “significant concern” and asks India to finish pilot studies on controlling the plants and to complete an action plan.

Encroachment is the second item. The Committee acknowledges there is no further agricultural encroachment but that existing encroachment remains unresolved because of sensitivities over the rights of Indigenous communities, and it asks India to keep addressing it with respect for those rights. The Sentinel reported on 8 December 2020 that IUCN’s assessment that year warned Manas might return to the Danger List, and that farm settlers occupied about 22 square kilometres in the Bhuyanpara Range after a 2017 eviction attempt failed. The 2024 and 2026 decisions record no new agricultural encroachment. The 2026 decision sets reporting dates and does not propose relisting.

The third item is a hydroelectric project upstream in Bhutan. The Committee has asked since 2012 for the environmental impact assessment of the Mangdechhu project, which the Indian and Bhutanese governments jointly inaugurated in August 2019. An online meeting of the two countries, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN took place on 28 November 2024, and India sent the minutes on 8 October 2025. The Committee notes with concern that no further information has come and asks for a follow-up meeting by 1 December 2026.

IUCN’s own Conservation Outlook for Manas, finalised on 11 October 2025, rates the site’s overall outlook as “significant concern”. It rates the current state of its values at low concern, the threats as high and protection and management as some concern. India’s next state of conservation report on Manas is due by 1 December 2027, for examination at the Committee’s 50th session.