“Jeep jockeys!” sniffed our guide, as a load of gesticulating figures overtook us in a cloud of dust, the driver shouting into a radio phone. “Tiger-centric,” he added, the newest insult that a naturalist trained by Conservation Corporation Africa can sling at a style of tourism all too prevalent in some of India’s national parks.

When staff at Mahua Kothi lined up recently to welcome first comers to India’s latest wilderness lodge, they ushered the subcontinent’s luxury eco-tourism business on to entirely new ground. The lodge’s opening in November, on the edge of Bandhavgarh National Park in the wilds of Madhya Pradesh, marked the arrival in India of leading safari operator Conservation Corporation Africa. Taj Safaris, CC Africa’s joint venture with Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, has, since then, opened a second lodge in Pench National Park; three more are to follow, in Kanha, Panna and Corbett. Together they represent a new application of South African eco-tourism savvy to India’s diverse and beleaguered jungle scene.

Wildlife reserves tend not to thrive in the vicinity of people – Bandhavgarh is four hours’ drive from the nearest airport at Jabalpur, six and a half from the next major stop on the tourist trail, the sublime Chandela temples at Khajuraho.

From the moment we drew up at Mahua Kothi, to find a row of people waving on the pathway, hot towels and cold drinks at the ready, my husband John and I were beguiled. The lodge – 12 luxurious cottages isolated among the trees surrounding a central living area – is South African in concept and philosophy, entirely Indian in management and spirit. The design incorporates mainly traditional elements – mud-coloured walls finished in lime and earth washes, a little courtyard complete with sacred tulsi (basil) plant and string couch. At night, open wooden beams and handmade roof tiles resound to anonymous squeakings and scufflings; from the depths of one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever encountered in India, I could afford to ignore them.

No pampering detail had been forgotten: flasks of rose sherbert stood invitingly by our doorway; oil lamps twinkled in the courtyard, lit every evening by our own personal attendant. Meals, eaten under the stars, plunder the central Indian kitchen with flair.

With January mornings and evenings still coolish, we returned from the park to find our enormous, candle-lit bath-tub filled with boiling hot water, its foam strewn with flower petals, a couple of glasses of wine sitting by its side; come bedtime, an electric blanket warmed the sheets.

Oh the bliss, oh the guilt! Mahua Kothi’s footprint could surely be lighter. Though the lodge has its own bore wells and recycles with care, its use of water, gas and electricity is lavish. So far, only half of the friendly and professional staff have been recruited from the immediate locality.

The experience of an Indian wildlife park is nothing if not democratic and the lodge’s out-sized Tata-mobiles have allegedly caused huffs amongst the Jeep jockeys. Unlike their African counterparts, Indian families visit their national parks in droves. Only 105 sq km (40 square miles) of the 1,170 sq km park are open to tourists so there is considerable pressure on the wildlife – though no worse than in Africa, says CC Africa. In the mornings, vehicles are restricted to specific routes but afternoons witness a free-for-all. Tiger sightings result in frenzied radio signals, hot pursuit and the company of anything up to 20 other vehicles. The jungle celebs are used to it. If taken near enough to the roadside, tiger family siestas can mean 60 or more visits by a relay service of tourist-laden elephants.

Intensive training for the naturalists employed by Taj Safaris and several projects run with local Forest Departments are among CC Africa’s contributions towards creating a better informed and more interpretive experience of India’s jungles. “Spartan would be generous,” says CEO Steve Fitzgerald of the guiding standards which convinced CC Africa that here was a natural habitat for the company. “Too tiger-centric: racing around ignoring all the other amazing wildlife present.”

The human resources are fantastic, he adds: “Inspired, fired up and with great skills in English.” Our young naturalist, Karan, is all that and more, a dedicated ornithologist who drives us through the serenely beautiful sal forest to remote corners where rare Malabar pied hornbills sail through the treetops and sloth bears range over hillsides pocked with medieval cave dwellings. Bandhavgarh may not match an African game park in the quantity of its animals, but its ace card is one of the highest concentrations of tigers in India. Over three days we watched quietly, hearts in mouths, as peacocks and spotted deer called in warning and, time and again, sections of stippled light and shade detached themselves from nearby bamboo thickets to pad regally into action.

Fresh pug marks in the dust accompanied us on our walk to the fort whose 10th-century ruins lie scattered across 580 acres of Bandhavgarh’s vulture-splashed clifftops: palace buildings given over to bats, shrines clasped in the embrace of strangling figs, statues of the gods abandoned in the grass. The only occupant, an old priest whose family had served the Rewa Maharajahs for generations, told us through Karan that tigers came most days to drink at the crumbling reservoir at the foot of his temple steps.

No one knows how many wild tigers survive in India; some experts say as few as 1,500. What is certain is that the numbers of those whose range is outside the reserves (an estimated 60 per cent during the 1990s) are dwindling catastrophically, mainly owing to a resurgence in poaching to feed the lucrative Tibetan demand for skins. Current government policy, including a recent Bill giving some 40 million tribal people rights to all of the country’s forests, indicates heavy weighting in favour of people rather than wildlife. Belinda Wright OBE, founder and executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India and a legendary scourge of the criminal trade, says that India’s tourism industry needs to wise up on a serious wildlife crisis, and speak up, too, if the tigers (second top draw for visitors, after the Taj Mahal) are not to vanish, save from a few safari parks.

Steve Fitzgerald explains that CC Africa’s approach is to convince local people that live tigers are more profitable than dead ones, an outcome that can be driven only by community involvement. It is early days for Mahua Kothi but a start is slowly being made on village welfare schemes such as the revival of biogas plants for ten local households and the installation of solar-powered street lights.

As Fitzgerald tells me: “This is a long road with no quick fix, but we will slowly but steadily go down it and see if it can make a difference.” Meanwhile, as the Mahua Kothi guest book records: “Truly feels like a giant step forward in Indian wildlife tourism.”

Need to know

Juilet Clough travelled with Cazenove & Loyd and Taj Safaris. Cazenove & Loyd (020-7384 2332, www.cazloyd.com) has an 11-night trip to Delhi and Madhya Pradesh from £2,706pp, staying at the Usha Kiran Palace in Gwalior, the Taj Chandela at Khajuraho, Mahua Kothi and the Taj Ambassador in Delhi: all on a B&B basis except at Mahua Kothi, which is full board and includes all safari activities. The price includes BA flights and transfers. Mahua Kothi (00800 4588 1825, www.tajsafaris.com) rates from £193pp (US$380) a night.