Does India deserve her tigers?

Not if we stay silent as they are decimated. Not just tigers, India's incredible biodiversity is a victim of apathy.

Prerna Singh Bindra reports

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28 May 2006

With over 400 mammals, 1,300 birds, 1,500 butterflies and 20,000 species of plants - many of them endemic - India has a unique, rich natural heritage and counts among the top biodiversity hotspots in the world. The country has only 2.4 percent of the world's area yet hosts over eight percent of its biodiversity.

The Royal Bengal Tiger is, of course, our charismatic brand ambassador of the wild. This regal beast has inspired man since time immemorial, as evidenced from ancient Harappan seals to present day films to bold conservation initiatives. It lives in our mythology and legends, rules our wilds, its forests feed our rivers; its survival is a symbol of the health of our eco-system. As home to the maximum number of wild tigers in the world - half the world's population - India is the trustee of a precious, rare heritage.

But do we deserve our natural wealth? And do we deserve our tigers? I watched with horror as the tiger crisis unfolded in recent times, as populations dipped, as local extinction occurred. And, with more dismay, noted our reaction, fumbling and denying till we are blue in the face, that our tigers are dying. As we stand by, silent and uncaring, gagged by greed and narrow, selfish interests. As we sign away habitats of rare, endemic creatures, eyes firmly on short-sighted dollar-happy goals.

And the answer I come up with is this: India does not deserve her tigers. She does not merit her natural treasures. I do not make this statement carelessly; it's not a random voice of doom but an answer carefully arrived after much thought, analysis and scrutiny of the death and destruction of India's wilds.

Let's start with the tiger first, to which we give the maximum protection through the most stringent laws, and security of habitat, and allot the greatest media space:

• Because India has less tigers than it did at the time of initiation of Project Tiger in 1973 - from 1,872 then to less than 1,500 now. Primary field observations by the current census methodology indicate a drastic fall (though officially we live by the fairy tale of some 3,600 tigers that existed in the last census of 2002, minus the 18 that were enumerated in Sariska). Far lower than what we started with.
• Sariska, we know, is emptied of tigers. Buxa, Indravati, Namdapha, Palamau, Dampha, and Nagarjunasagar are following suit. Ranthambhore and Panna have lost many wild cats in the recent past and are still counting their losses. Poaching continues indiscriminately: tigers are killed for their skin and bones.
• Confronted with such a crisis, what have we done? As a nation, as a government, as officials and as citizens? Buried our heads in the sand and denied the calamity. The Government of India does not acknowledge the crisis, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) pretends that the tiger is still living happily.
• Because the estimate method itself is in question and has been panned by one of the world's leading tiger experts, John Siedensticker. He points out various lacunae which could lead to misrepresentation of data and numbers. Among the serious shortcomings are: the census has no provision for tracking the number of poaching incidents; the census' feasibility itself is in doubt; and the genetic methods proposed have not been fully developed for such applications.
• Because although the primary phase of the new census methodology is over since January, the data has not been sent by state governments to the Wildlife Institute of India for interpretation. Why? Because state governments have "technical problems with the software," explains the Project Tiger Directorate. The real reason? It's suicidal to admit that numbers have halved in most states.
• Because by Project Tiger's own admission, the count will take at least another year. By which time, given current trends, yet more tigers will be killed. More Sariskas will happen. Even if we assume for the sake of it that the census methodology is unflawed, then can we not let the numbers game dawdle at its merry pace, and assume, for the sake of the tiger, that it is critically endangered and at serious risk of extermination? Should we not take mortality numbers, seizures and poaching statistics as an indicator and extend maximum protection - now - to the beleaguered animal?
• Because data shows that in 2004, 24 tiger skins, about 500 tiger claws and 13 cases of tiger deaths due to poaching and unnatural causes has been reported. In 2005, 16 mortality cases have been registered, 27 skins, 60 tiger paws and over 60 kg of tiger bones have been seized. This does not include those tiger skins and bones recovered from Nepal and Tibet, which were sourced from India, or the many deaths that go unreported, and the skins and other derivatives that go, undetected, to the market. Nor does it take into account the fact that Indian tiger skins are worn in Tibet by performers of traditional dances.
• Because poachers have admitted, on record, to killing five tigers in Panna, and 10 in Ranthambhore.
• Because 14 years after it was recommended, and in spite of a directive from the Prime Minister's Office, we do not yet have a Wildlife Crime Bureau in India. CBI intelligence reveals that illegal trade of wildlife products has financed terrorism and insurrection, and is closely linked to drug and arms cartels.
• Because the conviction rate for wildlife crimes is less than one percent.
• Because the Indian Forest Service continues to be the most neglected service in the country today. Promotions are delayed from the lowest to the senior most level, there has been a freeze on recruitment for the past 17 years, and the average age of the forest guard is 50 years. At present there is a 40 percent shortage of forest staff at the ground level where the real battles are fought.
• Because we continue to embellish our tiger numbers and tend to see each death, whether by poaching or by poisoning, as a natural one.
• Because Central investment for tiger reserves remains an abysmal Rs 75/sq km per year.
• Because we have only seven percent of our original tiger habitat remaining. And yet we relentlessly continue to destroy, degrade, and fragment its habitat, not sparing even our "sacrosanct" tiger reserves. Two examples: the MoEF has sanctioned a uranium project just two miles from Andhra Pradesh's Nagarjunasagar Tiger Reserve, which flouts Supreme * Court orders. And highways and railway lines cut through the heart of Palamau, Valmiki, Rajaji, Kaziranga, Melghat and other protected areas.
• Because we want to redistribute the tiger's habitat among people by passing the Tribal Land Rights Bill. The debate is of course a larger one, but there can be no two opinions that the Bill will be the final nail on the tiger's coffin.
• Because due to politicians' greed for votes, we are set to obliterate the laws that protect our wildlife and natural habitats - the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
• Because tiger protection has not entered either the political (apart from the Indira Gandhi era) or public conscience. It's at the bottom of the priority list - in governance, in budgets, in media. One does not see the media taking up sustained campaigns barring one or two national dailies, and stray reports. There is no public outrage at the continued slaughter and plunder. There are no protests, no candles lit, no tears shed for the tiger. It is a lonely, bitter battle fought by a few committed individuals, NGOs, and forest officials and guards, who are promptly termed "anti-people" and victimised if in service. This indifference, I believe, is our worst failure, for if the tiger's plight has not stirred hearts and inspired a crusade for its conservation, then the battle is already lost.
• And that, dear reader, is why India does not deserve her tigers. This is the fate of India's national animal, the star among her fauna. I need not then wax eloquent on the plight of the other, "lesser" creatures. Nonetheless, I will add a few lines on the fate of just a few of these rare wild animals, who constitute our incredible biodiversity.
• Oil exploration threatens the Desert National Park in Rajasthan, the best bet of the Great Indian Bustard, of which barely 500 remain.
• The Jerdon's courser had not been seen since 1900, but was rediscovered in 1986. About 50 to 200 birds cling to a tiny habitat of scrub forest in Andhra Pradesh, threatened by livestock grazing, quarrying and the latest - a canal that will fragment and degrade its habitat.
• That the largest concentration of the endangered Sarus crane at Safai village in Etawah is on its death bed, a victim of political games. There are grandiose plans (construction is underway) for a fancy airport, stadia and other such schemes which will raze the cranes' habitat.
• Gahirmatha along the Orissa coast, one of only three nesting sites of Olive Ridley turtles around the world, is already struggling with threat posed by trawlers causing thousands of deaths annually - over a hundred thousand deaths in the past decade. Now, the proposed Dhamra port will impact what is believed to the largest turtle rookery in the world.
• The proposal to shift Asiatic lions (barely 350 in India, and the world) from its only habitat Gir in Gujarat to Palpur-Kuno in Madhya Pradesh has been gathering dust for over a decade. Any disease or natural disaster could wipe out the entire population in Gir.
• We lose more leopards than tigers - more than 500 every year. Poaching is taking a fatal toll on the leopard's future. Even more critical is the fate of lesser cats, such as the caracal and leopard cat.
• In the Barapade caves in the Sahyadris lives one of the rarest bats in the world - the Wroughton's free-tailed bat. The caves are the only breeding sites and are threatened by limestone mining.
• India has lost 99 percent of her vulture population. The major cause has been traced to Diclofenac, used for livestock, but instead of banning it urgently, we are dawdling over it in characteristic bureaucratic manner, even when there is a substitute available.
• We have starved the World Heritage Site Keoladeo Ghana in Rajasthan of water in crucial years. Again, this Ramsar site was a victim of politics. The state government's refusal to release the Ajan dam waters to a parched Bharatpur was excused by stating that "people were more important than animals".
• Will tomorrow come for India's wildlife? Do we really care? Are we willing to rage a war, to make sacrifices to save our flora and fauna? Given current levels of indifference, I think not. I can only pray that I am wrong, that we will not deprive the yet-to-be-born Indian of his rich natural heritage.
• Once, India held her head high as a leader in conservation. Today, we must hang our heads in shame.