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Has the Tiger a Future in India?
India
is suffering its third tiger crisis. Once again there is fear that the largest
surviving tiger population in one country could face decimation, even
extinction. Estimates in the late 1960s and early 70s that the tiger population
had fallen to about 2,000, or less, was the first crisis, and it prompted Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi to launch Project Tiger in 1973 and to ban hunting and
the export of skins.
Project
Tiger was a success. It was clear that the tiger population was recovering. But
it led to widespread complacency until, in the early 1990s, tigers disappeared
in the famous Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve. A raid on a Tibetan house in Delhi
uncovered 400 kg of tiger bones (possibly from some 30 tigers) ready for
despatch to China for medicinal use. That provoked the second crisis. Action to
control poaching was strengthened, and again the tiger population recovered.
Now the
third crisis. Tigers are again missing from Ranthambhore, and have completely
disappeared from the nearby Sariska reserve since mid-2004. A research
scientist has declared that 30 tigers have also disappeared from the Panna
reserve, a claim rebutted by Project Tiger officials.
This
current crisis crisis has prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call on the
Central Bureau of Investigation to bring poachers and illegal traders to book,
and to summon a meeting of the Indian Board for Wild Life to review the
situation.
Frequent
discovery of tiger bone shipments in India, Nepal and China in recent years has
overshadowed a revived trade in skins; and it is now clear that tigers, and
even more leopards, are being poached to meet a high demand in China. In
October 2003, Chinese customs officers stopped a truck heading for Lhasa with
the skins of 31 tigers, 581 leopards and 778 otters. Last year, the
London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) listed 29 seizures from
July 1999 to July 2004 in which 80 tiger skins, 20,000 tiger claws, and 1,200
leopard skins were recovered. Most seizures were in India, four in Nepal, and
five in China. (see Cat News 41).
Exactly
how many tigers there are in India is not known. Official statistics from tiger
pugmark censuses put the number at 3,600 in 2001-02. But Indian tiger experts,
including a former Director of Project Tiger, believe there are many fewer,
perhaps only about 2,000 - as when Project Tiger was launched in 1973.
The
tiger population is fragmented across India like an archipelago. According to
official figures, only Corbett, Kanha and the Sundarban, out of the 27 Project
Tiger reserves, have over 100 tigers. Nine reserves have 50-100 tigers; and the
rest fewer than 50, one in the north-east reporting only four. But these
estimates are based on Project Tiger's pugmark censuses, which scientists have
declared unreliable and with exaggerated results.
It is
not only poaching that threatens the tiger, leopard and other wildlife in
India. The human population has topped one billion - nearly twice as many
people as when Project Tiger was launched. The population continues to
increase, leading to heavy pressure on protected areas and other wild habitats
for living space and development.
In
booming India, industrialisation rules; the senior official in the Ministry of
Environment and Forests declared in a World Bank Journal that environment
legislation and processes are causing risks for investors and need reforming.
Senior judges in the Madras High Court said that environmental protection is
only incidental in industrial development.
Many Indian
reserves contain rich mineral deposits; mining, often illegal, has already been
encroaching on reserves. Central and state governments have a growing interest
in promoting "eco-tourism" centres or theme parks at popular
reserves. Ranthambhore's director has complained that he faces constant demands
from tourist organisations to increase the already excessive number of tourist
vehicles daily entering its small area.
Fortunately
the Supreme Court has been supportive of conservation and has now called on
central and state governments to reply to a call for constitution of a body to
oversee the functioning of national parks and sanctuaries.
The future of the tiger is in the balance, but it can be improved by
serious action. The tiger can recover quickly from low numbers because it is
highly reproductive. To give it that opportunity it is essential that the
government of India and all authorities involved, demonstrate political will
and take effective action to save the tiger. And not only India; that applies
to all other tiger range countries. The tiger is part of their heritage and the
flagship of wildlife conservation; its extinction would bode ill for the
natural world. Peter
Jacckson
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