Back from the Brink

Constant vigil is the price we have to pay if the gains of Project Tiger are to be preserved, says Ruhi Ahuja

The long awaited national tiger census that began on January 22 is perhaps the single largest exercise of its kind. The result will determine the success of Project Tiger, an initiative of the government of India launched in 1973 to protect and maintain a substantial tiger population and to preserve biological reserves across the country for their survival.

As Bittu Sahgal, noted environmentalist and editor of Sanctuary Asia magazine says, tigers need food, shelter and absence of human disturbance. “I am fighting to protect the tiger because I know that without them India will lose not just its spirit but also its hope of survival in an era of climate change.” He blames the way humans have been using land for India’s vanishing tiger habitat over the past five decades. “Project Tiger seeks to protect critical tiger habitats as a way to protect the tiger and all other species that reside therein,” he adds.

The first three decades of the project were an undoubted success, with the area under conservation steadily increasing. It began across an expanse of 16,000 square kilometres with a population of just 268 tigers. By 2000, the area under the project’s preserve had increased to about 37,000 square kilometres and the population of tigers had increased to 1,498.

But despite the best efforts, India’s tiger population has fallen sharply in recent years. According to The Hindu newspaper, a nationwide survey conducted in 2006 indicated that the country’s tiger population had dropped to 1,141, with Karnataka being home to 290 followed by Madhya Pradesh. Uncontrolled tiger poaching across various parts of the country, especially north India, has taken a deadly toll and it is in this context that the latest census assumes significance.

In Karnataka, the tiger census is being carried out in four areas including Nagarhole National Park, Bandipur National Park, BR Hills Wildlife Sanctuary and Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary. The resettlement of people in these areas has been going on for years. Says Praveen Bhargav, managing trustee of Wildlife First and a member of the National Board for Wildlife, “Three voluntary resettlement schemes for forest dwellers marooned inside protected areas in Karnataka have provided some solutions.”

The first resettlement effort involved more than 400 non-tribal families living in 16 enclaves in the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary in Chikkamagalur. This project was completed in the year 2003. Under the second scheme in Nagarhole National Park in Mysore, since 1998 more than 350 tribal families have been relocated outside the park and been provided land, housing and other social amenities by the government. The third scheme will adopt an innovative approach in which the resettlement of people will be done through private donor funding. More than 12 families and 700 cattle have been moved out of Kudremukh National Park, Chikkamagalur and resettled on land bought from private conservation funding.

But efforts to save the tiger from extinction in the wild don’t end there. K. Ullas Karanth, a conservation scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and a trustee of the World Wide Fund for Nature-India suggests camera-trap sampling as one way to keep a constant check on the tiger population and monitor their location. Though the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 have done much to preserve Indian wildlife, the “tiger crisis” suggests that the battle is far from over.

(Also published in The Softcopy, an IIJNM Web Publication. Here's the link: http://thesoftcopy.in/project%20tiger.html)