4,075 and climbing: the one-horned rhino's quiet comeback in India and Nepal

In Kaziranga National Park in Assam, roughly two-thirds of the world's greater one-horned rhinos graze the floodplains — and there are more of them than there were. The International Rhino Foundation's State of the Rhino 2026 report puts the global population at 4,075, up from 4,014 in 2022. Assam recorded zero known poaching incidents in 2025, only the second time since the 1970s, and Nepal matched it — its tenth zero-poaching year since 2011. Dudhwa Tiger Reserve counted 53 rhinos, up from 42 in 2022, while Jaldapara and Gorumara have each grown by about half over a decade. Rangers, protected habitat and safari fees that pay for patrols are doing the slow work, one calf at a time.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program