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The Year in Review: Future bleak |
HOME2005 will go down as one of the worst years for India's wildlife. Prerna Singh Bindra tells you why. This column hits the stands on Christmas day - bang in the midst of the season of good cheer. I hate to strike a serious and despondent note at such a time, but as 2005 draws to a close, it is a good time to look back on the main wildlife stories of the year, and there is isn't any good news. The tiger crisis consistently dominated all of 2005, and as one who has chronicled the tragedy, I can say with certainty, that it is not just the dusk for 2005, but the sun will set on the tiger, and wildlife of India, if apathy and indifference continue to dominate. I have before me, two papers, one submitted by a veteran wildlifer, Ranjit Talwar, who has worked with World Wildlife Fund for Nature for 13 years (but has scrupulously disassociated the article from the organisation), and another by a senior forest officer. Talwar has drawn a comparison of the government census, and actual estimates of tigers, based on direct and indirect estimates, personal visits, perceptions, views of experts and those on the field. These have been reproduced below. Talwar doesn't claim hundred percent accuracy, but says they are "reasonably close to the truth." The revelations are shocking, and a slap in the face of the government still trying to maintain that our tigers are "safe" and happy in their fragile, shattered sanctuaries. One is saddened, but not really shocked by the numbers. Those who work with tigers know the ground reality of each reserve, but have preferred to stay quite, or have been forced to do so. Significantly, Peter Jackson, who has headed the Cat Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union for over two decades, believes in these abysmally low numbers too, "I am sorry to have to say that I fully agree with this, the crisis is grave and it is hard to be optimistic." This sudden fall in numbers is not a recent phenomenon, but happened in the space of a few years. The initial years of Project Tiger (during Mrs Indira Gandhi's regime) were good and effective, but once she went, so did the political will to defend our wildlife. The government has chosen to ignore reality, cooking up fancy numbers each year, thereby keeping the tiger alive more on paper than on the ground. Manipulations have ruled census from day one. I won't open the debate on the credibility of the pugmark census, but one can say with certainty that distortion takes place at the higher level. Most agree that at the grassroots levels the numbers given are fairly accurate. Which is where the second paper comes in. He cites a small example, the story of Periyar when a census was carried out in 1986, the earlier census was close to 40, but when the range officer gave an estimate of 24 tigers, the file was sent back to him by the field director. "Make that 40," he said. So were born an additional, mythical 16 tigers, and we happily believed that the Periyar forest was rich, and secure, with 40 tigers. This, he says, is a lie we precipitate in each reserve. In his paper, a watered down version of which has appeared in Indian Forester, he has called the present crisis a state of emergency and Sariska the tip of the iceberg. On December 9, a tiger died at Bandhavgarh. Challenger, as he was known, had been found November 5, walking around with a noose around its neck (that is the state of affairs in one of our best protected reserves), and was tranquilised by the forest department, the noose removed, and he apparently lived happily ever after. His ever after only lasted a month, he was found dead, and operation cover-up began. A friend in the media was expressly forbidden to go in. The park director first said there had been a territorial fight, between a male and female (anyone who knows tigers knows this is impossible), then said it was a territorial fight. Period. When I spoke to him, he said that the tiger had died after falling on its head when attacking prey! The expert whose opinion I took to check the plausibility of such an occurrence looked me straight in the eye and said, "Was the tiger drunk?" Why wasn't the media allowed access? Why was there a hasty postmortem? Why were a number of excuses doled out? If the tiger had succumbed to a territorial fight what happened to the other tiger? Tigers do die of territorial fights, but that cannot be the answer to each death. An officer with the Ministry of Environment and Forests says that each tiger death is passed on as natural, if that can be managed. This is not just a tiger malaise, but such denial tactics cross the species barrier. If an elephant dies, it is invariably passed on as a female, since the death of a tusker immediately raises suspicion of poaching. In Gir, when the carcasses of a dead leopard and lion were found last month, the authorities said they had died fighting. Since when did a leopard, a much smaller cat, have the power to kill a lion? To my mind, the real crisis is not just the fact that were are losing our natural treasure so fast and so brutally, it is also that the guardian of the forests, the forest department refuses to acknowledge there is a crisis. Thiru A Raja, the Minister for Environment and Forests said that Sariska was an isolated case. If only one could believe him. But then, how does one account for all those skins seized? In just the past three months, 20 tigers have reported to have died. Even as I write this, news came in that a tiger has been found dead, in central Chanda circle in the territorial forest adjoining Tadoba Tiger Reserve. It was poisoned. Another male tiger was electrocuted a few days back outside of Pench. A lion was found poisoned just outside of Gir on Wednesday. This is the 12th death in past six months. In Orissa, 64 kg of ivory was seized in Jashipur in Mayurbhanj district. In Chhinwada, that shares boundary with the Pench tiger reserve, two leopards, a sloth bear and a sambar - all Schedule I animals - were electrocuted on Monday 19. On Tuesday, officials in Mumbai seized 55,000 snake skins. They were dumped in a jute bag marked "Chillies", and on their way to Singapore. In Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Orissa, 250 tribals were caught poaching, they had carcasses of many dead animals, and reports indicate that they may also have hunted tigers, but investigations are on before this can be ascertained. T hey also recovered firearms. The tribals were on a ritual akhandshikar, but this is the first time that they were caught with modern firearms. Where did they procure these, was the hunt merely a ritual or has commerce and lure of money intruded into this traditional macabre ritual? This is time for introspection for those who believe that tribals and tigers can co-exist happily in a forest, as suggested by the Tiger Task Force, and envisaged by the Tribal Land Rights Bill, both gifts from the present government. All this in just under ten days and I am sure I do not have meticulous records. And still we live in fool's paradise that all is well with India's tigers and other animals. In spite of all the various recommendations, committees, the Prime Minister's alleged interest in conserving tigers, we still don't have a National Wildlife Crime Bureau, guards in some reserve are unpaid for months (Bandipur, for example), no armed foresters or forces to guard our reserves, (it would do well to cite here that armed guards have been dispatched to protect the endangered Monarch butterflies that migrate from Canada to the Sierra Chincua in Central Mexico, against loggers who threaten the butterfly habitat. Incidentally, monarchs are not even listed as endangered), Jharkhand's and Orissa's forests have been thrown open to be mined, large tracts of evergreen rainforests will be submerged by a series of dams in the North-East. And that's just the tiger. I would like to just note here are some examples of other threatened areas and critically endangered species that have escaped the public eye and urgently need attention. The Jerdon's Courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus) is a very rare bird, listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union. Estimates suggest that about 25 to 200 remain, and their habitat is severely threatened by the proposed Telugu-Ganga canal project. The bird is endemic to this region. This project, which involves the construction of a distributary canal, entails excavation activities of mammoth proportions requiring clearance of all surrounding vegetation. It is a matter of grave concern that a section of this destructive process passes right through the Yerraballi forest block and Muthukur forest block of Kadapa forest division in Andhra Pradesh. Bharatpur is well on its way to dry days again, with no solution in sight to the water issue. Unless a problem to the water solution is sought, this world heritage sight could well lose its status. The only nesting site of the Olive Ridley turtles at Bhitarkanika is threatened by the setting up of the Dharma Port. Part of Periyar Tiger Reserve was denotified to give way to infrastructure (including vital things like media centres!) for an ancient temple. Chronicling the endangered, the near-extinct and the tremendous threats to India's wildlife is an endless, depressing task. I almost wish the government would give up its pretence of saving tigers, and end this farce, since I really don't see the government, Prime Minister downward, taking real, committed and urgent steps to conserve and protect India's wildlife and its habitat. Still, I hope, against all hope, for such a miracle, for a new dawn in 2006. What They say
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