Nobel laurite Milton Friedman had once remarked, "If a government were put in charge of managing the Sahara Desert, within five years, they'd have a shortage of sand!" Well, that pretty well sums up the Government of India's handling of tiger conservation in recent years.   Admittedly, it has taken a lot longer than the predicted 'five years' to reach the present crisis situation.

 

The journey of the Indian tiger through the last two hundred years of history illustrates deceit perpetrated by man on the one hand and downright incompetence displayed by him on the other. The king of our jungles has been cheated by those who pretended to be protecting him. If the erstwhile princes protected tigers from the common man, it was not for the long term survival of the species; it was for their own hunting pleasure. Later, when the responsibility of protecting the tiger devolved upon the Government of India, despite making a very promising start, the officialdom made a hash of it subsequently!

 

There is only one yard- stick to measure the effectiveness of all our efforts to conserve tigers since the launch of Project Tiger. After thirty- three years of the Project and an expenditure of billions of rupees, today, we have lesser number of tigers than what we had started with in 1973.   

 

There is no point in going into the historical background of the problem but recent events would be relevant in order to understand how we have blundered to reach the present situation. Also, I strongly feel that if an honest effort is to be made to redeem the situation, we need to be selective about the issues we need to tackle first. Dissipating our limited resources to counter all the negative factors at the same time may not be a prudent approach.

 

If I were the decision maker, I would tackle the current crisis with a two pronged attack. The first important thing to do is to present an honest picture of where we stand today.   Let us cut out the pretence so that we know approximately (Exactly will never be possible) how many tigers are left and in which areas. We can then concentrate on those areas to first stabilize the situation and later to make positive gains from there onwards. When you have limited resources at your disposal, remember a key principle taught in the Army; "Never try to reinforce a failure, always build on a success or a partial success." So let us first find out our successes and partial successes. By this I do not imply that areas with small tiger populations should be abandoned. These too must be addressed commensurate with the promise they hold.   

 

While there are many factors that are acting against the interest of the tiger, there is only one factor that is more important than all the others and this has to be tackled on a war footing. This is POACHING! Poaching of the tiger itself. Poaching of the tiger's food species and the poaching of timber, thereby destroying the tiger's home. In order to understand the severity of the threat, it would be relevant to understand its background so that appropriate counter measures can be adopted.

 

What started as a clandestine small trade of supplying only tiger bones to China and other Far Eastern countries for making traditional medicines has over a period of time developed into a major clandestine industry with elaborate procurement channels following different trade routes, processing houses and thereafter a well developed system of export. First noticed around 1985; by about 1993, tiger poaching for trade was well organized and thriving. Even at that point of time, the government had refused to accept that there was a problem.

 

Poaching pressure that first peaked around 1993 continued over the next 8-10 years with fluctuating intensity. By 2001- 02, when this was checked to some extent, a new threat developed from Tibet. Tiger and leopard skin chubas; a garment worn in this region became a status symbol and a huge demand was created. Illegal traders were desperate to cash in on this opportunity and pressed into service gangs of tribals known for their traditional hunting skills. During the course of the next few years, an all out war was waged by these poachers against the tiger. A lot of damage was done. However, the irony is that the government remained completely oblivious of this new threat till irrefutable evidence of this reality was produced by some NGOs for the world to see.

 

Tiger populations in Parks with terrain and conditions that suited the modus operandi of these marauding tribals were decimated. Reserves with lax management were specifically targeted. The years 2003 and 2004 were probably the worst in tiger's history in India. Sariska was completely ravaged. Ranthambore; which was only beginning to recover from an earlier major poaching assault was attacked once again and severely 'mauled.' Populations crashed everywhere. Panna, Bandhavgarh, Satpuda and Melghat tiger reserves were hit with a severity that had never been seen before. Lesser known areas like the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary and some territorial forests in Central India lost all or most of their already small tiger populations. Yet the authorities maintained that all was well. It would be interesting to see that while this was going on, what was the proportion of the total budget allocation of Project Tiger that was spent on hard core protection. What were the priorities of Project Tiger during this period? Census or protection? And has the focus shifted in favour of the latter even now?

 

Currently, the dwindling of the prey base species is probably the second most serious threat to the survival of the tiger in India. All tiger areas without exception are grossly deficient of prey base and cannot support the number of tigers that are reported to live in them. The problem is further compounded by the indiscriminate poaching of the prey species that is rampant on the periphery of even the best managed parks. While it can be said that the poaching of the tiger is only done by specialists, poaching of the prey base is done by all. The tribals living in the forests are the worst offenders. They kill anything and everything for not only their own protein needs; they freely sell the meat in nearby towns as a matter of routine. Shortage of the tiger's natural food results in the tigers preying on domestic livestock and that leads to a man- animal conflict wherein the tiger is the loser once again.

 

Why are our so called Protected Areas so weak in providing protection? A common tendency among critics is to hold park managers responsible for everything that goes wrong. While this may not be unfair criticism in most cases, the constraints faced by the park managers merit consideration. Acute shortage of staff, vehicles, radio sets and other tools of management, all add up to their performance falling much short of expectations. During a visit to Melghat Tiger Reserves some years ago, I was surprised to note that the Park's only "Mobile Anti-Poaching Patrol" was operating on foot! The Park had more vehicles deployed for tourism than it had for protection and management. If the personnel of the forest department managing Parks have to effectively defend their areas of responsibility, they have to be strong enough to neutralize criminals who are either professional or opportunistic poachers. This can only be achieved through aggressive protection measures like those adopted in Kaziranga.  Today, the management infrastructure held by almost all Parks is entirely inadequate. The training of the forest staff in providing protection is extremely poor. And most importantly, the authority invested in the forest personnel of most states does not support the adoption of strong measures even against violators caught in the act. The personnel of the forest department are invariably left to defend themselves in prolonged court cases that follow shoot- outs in which poachers may be injured or killed. Such attitudes cannot do much for the morale of the field staff who serve under the most trying conditions.     

 

I would therefore recommend the following steps:

 

• The ongoing census should come up with realistic figures of remaining tiger populations; it will be acceptable to all, no matter how bitter the pill is!

• Assessments of infrastructure needs of all parks against a realistic threat analysis be carried out. The required infrastructure should thereafter be provided directly to the Parks under the arrangements of Project Tiger and not through the respective state governments. I would very strongly recommend the same channel for budgetary support as well. Objections to this new procedure can be negotiated with the states.

• A special drive to train forest staff in defending their areas of responsibility be carried out. Special syllabi must be developed to address major gaps in the current training. Also, the antecedents of trainers must be clearly checked out because some of the trainers in the past themselves had no claim to any expertise in the field. This training can be organized with resources available from within the country. Offers from abroad to impart such training are not recommended for acceptance.

• The personnel of the forest department of all states must be empowered on similar lines as has been done in Assam.     

 

The above recommended actions will not address all the adverse factors. But they will be able to counter some of the more destructive ones. Factors like man-animal conflict, insurgency will still need to be tackled. In any case, insurgency is not something that can be addressed by the forest department who are neither trained nor equipped for such tasks. Insurgency will have to be addressed at the level of the state and Central governments.

 

Available records indicate that India had about 300,000 sq kms of tiger habitat at the time of Independence in 1947. In 1973 when Project Tiger was conceptualized, nearly 14,000 sq kms of prime tiger breeding areas were brought under its fold with the hope that as the population increases it would occupy the neighbouring areas. Today in the 21 ^st century, the total tiger habitat available is less than 150,000 sq kms of which about 40,000 sq kms has been placed under Project Tiger. Though theoretically the area under Project Tiger has increased to 40,000 sq kms, practically less than half remains viable tiger habitat because various factors. And some prominent people, supported by a few tiger 'experts' now propose that the tiger must share even this remaining area with the tribals!

 

The Indian politician needs to be honest for once. That India does not care for the tiger can be seen in innumerable acts of commission and omission in recent months. So why not cut out the sham. I am reminded of latter part of what Corbett had written in the early fifties. " A tiger is a large-hearted ………… and that when he is exterminated — as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support — India will be poorer by having lost the finest of her fauna."

 

If the government is still unwilling to tackle the problem on a war footing and the politician does not desist from trading the tiger's future with vote bank politics, the time for our great country to get poorer has arrived!