If Tomorrow Comes

Prerna Singh Bindra in The Pioneer, June 2005

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The tiger is extinct in Sariska. Nor is Sariska an isolated tragedy, but an indicator of the problems that plague the beleaguered national animal and its habitat. It was in early march of this year that the tiger crisis caught the attention of our Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. He expressed his concern, wrote to the Rajasthan Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje to look into the matter, ordered a CBI enquiry into the Sariska catastrophe, set up a Tiger Task Force to look into the current crisis and arrive at effective solutions. He even made a hurried trip to Ranthambhore.

Great, isn't it? Remarkable that the highest office in India has deigned, finally, to respond to the tiger tragedy. Why, then, does despair still persist? Why is it there a deep conviction that today, more than ever, there is little hope for the tiger? Why then is a sense of impending doom is greater than ever? So, what has really happened since the PM acted in response to the crisis? Not much, really. The Sariska CBI report is ready, they have the names of the big guys and the culprits responsible for killing the tigers in Sariska. But they cannot make arrests because the Rajasthan government is yet to transfer the case to the CBI.

Meanwhile, investigations show that the poachers are not resting easy, they have shifted base to other tiger areas, notably in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and other southern states. Let us not forget too, that Sariska is just one tiger reserve from a list of 28, where poaching is a severe a problem. Numbers have fallen drastically in Ranthambhore, they are missing in Panna, and Bandhavgarh has seen a recent spate of tiger deaths. There has been no sign of the tiger in Buxa for the past year, Dampha is a similar story and no one knows the fate of the tiger in Nagarjunasagar and Indravati, which are ruled by naxalites. One does not know that if the tigers of Namdapha have survived traditional hunters. Some of the above habitats have gone the way of Sari ska way, while others are following at an alarming rate.

If only we would remove our blinkers and acknowledge the crisis. The government essentially disagrees that a tiger calamity exists, and even if they are right, the tigers must get the benefit of doubt, and therefore protection. Tiger numbers are just too fragile, and the habitats far too vulnerable to permit any laxity. In the past ten years, the total poaching cases are manifold the figure of 249 tigers being poached in five years, given out by the Ministry. Wherever there are tigers, there are poachers, and the sooner we act on this assumption, the sooner we can hope to protect the tiger. Why, then, has not the CBI been given a national mandate to investigate poaching and the illegal trade in wildlife? Why is it that even at the face of such horrific continuing massacre, The National Wildlife Crime Prevention and Control Bureau is still gathering dust? Yes, we know that it exists and that orders were issued that it must be activated in the National Board for Wildlife meeting chaired by the PM on March 17. Well, it just hasn't happened.

Monsoon is the most vulnerable period for tigers, parks are closed during this season and protection becomes exceedingly difficult since the rains wash away the roads, making accessibility difficult. As it is the forest department operates with a shortage of upto one-third of its staff, which is both aging and ill-equipped. It is the monsoons when poachers strike the most, therefore the need to deploy additional forces, be it home guards or police, cannot be stressed enough. But the rains have now arrived, and aside from Ranthambhore no park has been given extra protection. One shudders to think of the scenario, post monsoon. According to Project Tiger estimates, nearly 60 per cent of the tiger population lives outside the reserves. Given the state of the tigers inside the reserves, one despairs of their fate once they cross the protected boundaries. A close look at the death figures show that much of the poaching occurs outside the reserves. A radio-collared tiger, 120, died an agonizing death in a poacher's noose just outside the boundaries of Panna, while a tigress with her three cubs were poisoned outside Tadoba, and B1 and B2, were killed outside the precincts of Bandhavgarh. Shri Bhardwaj, Deputy Director of Ranthambhore says that once the tigers leave the reserve, it is akin to walking into a death trap. He is right, the Keola Devi sanctuary adjoining the reserve has also lost all the six tigers that the last census showed. Tigers outside protected areas, or even in forests not carrying the tiger reserve tag have absolutely no protection. None what so ever. Moreover, such 'outsiders' are thrown into sharp conflict with man. Outside sanctuaries, the natural prey base is minimal. As the recent Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi case has shown, hunting of deer and other creatures is carried on with impunity. With no natural prey to feed on, the tiger must assuage his hunger with livestock. Irate farmers avenge loss of their cattle by poisoning or electrocuting straying tigers.

Nor will protection alone safeguard the tiger. The tiger's habitat is rapidly shrinking and degrading by the day. Most of our reserves today are fragmented islands with tiny tiger populations. Take Ranthambhore as an example. With a core area of little over 300 sq kms it hosts anywhere between 20 to 40 (depends on whom you want to believe, the NGOs who say the numbers have dipped or the optimistic official census) tigers. The reserve is like an island surrounded by enormous populations of people and cattle. Besides the problem of illegal cattle grazing inside, such a segregated population leads to inbreeding. This isolation from other tiger habitats ensures that there is no induction fresh blood. Inbreeding translates to lower sperm count, higher infant mortality rate and a population prone to d isease. A more immediate worry is that such patchwork forests allow little space for tigers. Tigers are territorial animals, and the male needs anything between 30 to over 200 kms depending on sufficient prey base and the availability of females for future progeny. Even as tigresses breed within the reserves, once the cubs, especially the males, grow up they need to carve their own territories. But there is just no place for them. Territorial fights increase between the 'challenger' and the existing dominant tiger, and while this is natural behaviour such mortalities increase due to lack of space. The cubs also stray outside the reserve for want of space and fall prey to poachers or succumb to a conflict situation. It is essential therefore to protect not just isolated reserves, but also ensure at least some contiguous habitats as for example in the Terai region, which has the protected areas of Dudhwa, Corbett and Rajaji, though corridors connecting these forests, even though are h ighly fragmented and degraded.

A recent study by the Forest Research Institute shows that tiger reserves in India have lost over 200 sq kms of habitat and records an alarming trend of fragmentation. While this maybe a small percentage of the total…sq kms, the trend is ominous. Will the PM's interventions save the tiger? How can one believe that if the same office, which declares concern for our national animal, pushes a bill that will redistribute the tiger's habitat to people, effectively killing any chance of the tigers' survival? There has been much controversy surrounding the Schedule Tribe Recognition of Forests Rights Bill, 2005, I will stress on just a few points. Once forests lands come under private ownership as the bill proposes, the land mafia will move in. It is a moot point whether tribals will benefit. Why do we want to keep the tribal at subsistence levels and not give them the fruits of development? Unfortunately, the advent of civilization into wilderness has shown that the symbiotic relationship between forests and tribals is a myth. The day of the 'hunter-gatherer' tribals, except in rare cases like the Sentinels in Andamans are over, they have been exposed to the consumer mania, but lack the wherewithal to avail of the goodies. Opening up of the forest, land, trees, timber, forest produce, without no law enforcement in place will simply lead to exploitation, and ultimate death of the forest. In our typical hasty shortsightedness, we will grant the land to the tribal to gain votes, he in turn will kill his forest for quick gain. And if the forest goes, the tribal, and a way of live, goes too. Not to mention the tiger.

And where will it all stop? If tribals get ownership of a village say, in Melghat Tiger Reserve, where will their children go to school? Will they not want electricity? How about hospitals? Do they not have the right to better communication and roads to better medical facilities etc? Will we provide for these? If not, what happens to the 'historical injustice' that the government wants to rectify? If yes, will someone please explain that a forest does not remain a forest once such development takes over. It starts as a village, and then develops into a town that ultimately morphs into an urban center. A cub needs his forest and a healthy prey base if he is to become a tiger, not a school.

Then there is the Tiger Task Force. Well intended, but clearly marked with agenda. In a recent meeting at Nagpur, the force steered clear of the subject of tiger conservation. The focus of the meeting was how tribals could use forests, how they could acquire land and other rights over the tiger's habitat. Which, after all, the chairperson was to explain later, is the purpose of forests. The task force has effectively divided people into tribal vs. tiger, people vs. tiger, wildifers vs. people's rights. It is not so. Local people must be involved in conservation, they have always enjoyed rights to minor forest produce for sustenance, and must continue to do so. Any wildlifer will be the first to admit that in India the issue of people and wildlife cann ot be isolated. However, it is best not to wear rose-tinted glasses and romanticize the tribal-forest relationship. Modern day pressures have meant that tribals seek more than mere sustenance. It is called greed - it is what led the locals living within Sariska to lead the poacher to the tiger. Ditto Ranthambhore and Bandhavgarh. It is a human trait, the poor villager living in abject poverty in the jungles is as vulnerable to the lure of money and to rise above his living standard as his urban counterpart.

Wildlife traders living in cities cannot stroll into forests, shoot a tiger and walk away. To track tigers and other big game, local knowledge is essential and this is where the cash-rich trader uses the local people. People within a tiger reserve is not good news. Both for man and animal. Living cheek by jowl, the conflict between man and carnivore will only intensify. The tiger does hunt livestock, and sometimes even, man. In this battle between man and beast, there will be no clear winners. For the tiger, people within its habitat is catastrophic. The Java, Bali and Caspian tiger have gone extinct because of excessive exploitation and human interference in their landscape. Wildlife scientists from across the word have concluded, from studies across habitats, that tigers do not breed in co-exi stence with human beings. They need inviolate spaces. Cats need undisturbed habitat in order to proliferate. If people dweller around habitat, the forest will soon see a tiger drought. This is simple biology of the animal. A classic example of this is Chilla range in Rajaji National Park, where there were several deras of the Van Gujjars, a nomadic, pastoral tribe. The habitat bore the scars of a human dwelling; refuse, putrid nullahs, and grasses minced away by livestock. For twenty years, Chilla rarely saw the odd tiger, and then about two years back, the Gujjars of Chilla were relocated. This year, two tigress's have made Chilla their nursery, and a third is pregnant. Chilla is a lesson that all that the tiger need to flourish is an inviolate space and adequate protection.

This is a school of thought that the chairperson of task force does not subscribe to, and this has created a chasm within the members of the task force. The task force must remember that its purpose of its creation was to halt the decline in the number of tigers, protect and effectively manage their habitat, not to push the Tribal Land Rights Bill. The rationale bandied about is that since the forest service and conservationists have failed to protect the tiger, therefore the people must take over. By this same token the claim that, the people must take over law too. One sees enough instances of lawlessness to brand the police a failure, but does that meant we should disband the police force? There is simply too much money in exploiting forests and killing tigers to do away with the laws governi ng wildlife and forests as the bill proposes.

It is time that everyone understands that the tiger is the apex predator and it is because if him that the forests are protected and because there are forests there is water. Tragically, the entire 'people vs. tiger' has taken a vicious turn. A healthy debate is welcome, but the fight has got dirty. Since the controversy begun I have had 'sources' giving information on a certain people activist living off tribals as well as poaching and wildlife trade charges on two of our most respected wildlife experts. As a journalist, I have investigated these, and found them baseless. It is disgusting that tiger and tribal conservation has stooped down to dirty politicking, with lobbies viciously trying to out-maneuver each other.

Nor does exclusively blaming Project Tiger work. The tiger crisis has not occurred overnight, it took some years in the making, while all of us slept. It is the need of the hour to make Project Tiger stronger, to make it more than mere bank whose job is to finance reserves across the country, with only recommendatory powers towards its management. I find it tragic that at a time like this, when all of us; people, officers, government, wildlife activists et al, should be standing together: all they do is indulge in a campaign, not to save the tiger, but to run each other down. All efforts must be directed towards fighting the real enemy - the poacher, the politician, the businessman, all intent on killing the tiger and pillaging its habitat.

Saving the tiger has taken on the tone of a circus. The honourable Union Minister of Science Shri Kapil Sibal wants to invest huge amounts in DNA and the CCMB plans to make tiger dollies. To recreate Tiger clones. Let's us not even question the science, which is yet to be perfected. Does it make sense to invest crores on cloning tigers? When this money is best diverted to better equip those who protect our forests and provide for people displaced by forests? Will someone please tell me where these cloned tigers will live and hunt and breed once DNA has resurrected them? With tribals in the forest?

If we have been unable to protect the wild tiger and habitat, how do we imagine conserving those we 'create'? India has seen a tiger crisis before in late 1960s, when populations dipped to less than 2,000. A passionately committed Prime Minster created Project Tiger, while zealous officers, international support, strict laws and a strong public opinion gave the tiger a second lease of life. Then came the second disaster in the early 1990s, when a demand for tiger skins and body parts in South-east Asia and western countries disseminated our wild tigers. That crisis was not recognized in time, but strict measures did show resurgence or so we thought. India's tigers are again at the crossroads, where it could possibly live and thrive, or more likely, go ing by our present comatose mode, we could lose it forever. Trips to Ranthambhore don't save tigers, however well meant they are, Mr Prime Minister. Only unrelenting commitment to do so can. It is high time that the recommendations by numerous committees set up over the years for controlling poaching and conserving the tiger were adhered to. The immediate creation of a Wildlife Crime Bureau and a higher conviction rate of wildlife criminals will go a long way. The protection of tiger reserves, by well-equipped forest staff (eventually building up a forest police force) and supported by para-military forces is an urgent requirement. The fresh recruitment in forest staff is a major priority for in some states recruitment has been frozen for over 20 years. And finally the creation a dedicated Ministry or at the very least a separate forests and wildlife department will make all the difference. It is absolutely essential that atleast four per cent of India remains inviolate, dedicated to wildlife.

Else, lets stop uttering platitudes and false promises. Let us give up the pretence of our concern for the tiger and let us continue to plunder the tiger and its habitat. This is not time for half-measures. Act now or else bid adieu to the Panthera tigris.