SAVE OUR TIGERS - Are we doing enough?

Our tigers are in danger. They are falling prey to poaching and man-tiger conflict. Inviolate spaces for tigers are shrinking. Villagers living near core and buffer areas of tiger reserves poison them in revenge for killing their cattle. The government agencies have failed miserably in relocating the reluctant villagers; as in the last 40 years they have been able to relocate only 105 villages out of 1700 in protected tiger reserves. Abhishek Pandey visited the Jim Corbett National Park in Nainital (Uttarakhand) as part of a media briefing workshop on ‘Tigers, Tiger Habitats and Conservation’ organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and reports the present status of the national animal.

Jim Corbett Park (Uttarakhand): India had over 50,000 tigers in the beginning of the 20^th century and is now left with only 1,706. Habitats are shrinking because people living on the fringes of tiger reserves are dependent on forests for grazing and firewood. Poaching is rampant. Thousands of posts of forest guards are lying vacant across the country. Tigers are facing threats to their lives on many fronts.  

Thankfully, the situation has improved slightly with the efforts of many NGOs and government agencies. According to the Environment Ministry, the estimated number of tigers at 1,706 is higher than the 1,411 tigers in 2007. India still has over 70 per cent of the total tiger population of the world.

Sunita Narain, Chairperson of Tiger Task Force (TTF) and Director-General of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said, “Our forests are habitats of people and not wilderness areas. Millions of people depend on forests for their livelihood. We should keep in mind the interests of people too for sustainable tiger conservation. We should not develop hostile neighbours for tigers and should work on changing the conservation paradigm. We should work on providing employment and tourism benefits to villagers and also allow them to harvesting produce on a sustainable basis.”

However, one of the members of the task force, Valmik Thapar, had written in his note of dissent sent to the chairperson that human and tiger co-existence plans will not work because people will not relocate if the co-existence plan will improve their life 100 fold. He has written a book The Last Tiger and said that a miracle is required to save Indian tigers. He has said in an interview that lions don't co-exist with people in Africa, jaguars don't co-exist with people in South America and tigers and leopards have never co-existed with people in India.

The country has 41 tiger reserves in 17 states and out of which 25 reserves have notified buffer zones. Around 50 per cent of the tiger population lives outside the protected tiger reserves. They are vulnerable to poaching. Despite rigorous tiger conservation activities by government agencies and the forest department, the nation has lost 45 tigers in 2012 (till June 9, 2012). This year has been a terrible year for tigers.

RK Mishra, Director of the Jim Corbett National Park, claims that there have been no instances of poaching since 2001. The department arrested three poachers after finding four metal traps inside the park. Some wildlife activists have alleged that the park is a haven for poachers and that 15 tigers have been killed in 2012. However, this has not been confirmed yet.

Mishra, who hails from Odisha, added, “The forest department is trying to put a stop on retaliatory killing of tigers. Villagers poison tigers if the animal invades human habitats and kills cattle. We give immediate compensation to the villagers whenever a case is reported.” The Jim Corbett Park has over 200 tigers and there are over 40 tigers in Ram Nagar Forest range.  

Odisha

Simlipal was one of the first nine tiger reserves which were declared in 1973. Besides Simlipal, Odisha has two other tiger reserves—Satkosia Tiger Reserve and Sunabeda Tiger Reserve. According to the state government, there are 192 tigers in Odisha, while the Wild Life Institute of India (WWI) states there are only 45.

Lala A.K. Singh, who is a wildlife expert and has worked in the Simlipal Tiger Reserve for more than two decades said that we can save tigers in Odisha only by minimizing human interference and creating inviolate space for the animals.

As Ravi Chellam, wildlife biologist and conservationist, puts it, “tigers are territory animals and they cannot live in apartments like humans. We have to create inviolate space to protect tigers.”