Managing tigers and looking after forests is a State subject, and we need to depend on innovative ideas empowered by CMs if we have to save tigers. It depends on political will; it depends on innovative, administrative and bureaucratic ideas that are implemented, it will not happen if we go on the way we are right now
In 1973, the beginning of Project Tiger which was inaugurated in 1974, there was an estimate done on the number of tigers and it was 1,800 then. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was very keen that the wilderness, forest, nature and the tigers survive. So, she created the Wildlife Protection Act in 1974, Project Tiger and also piloted the Forest Conservation Act. Even though Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, her positive impact continued in the world of tigers and by the end of the 80s, we reached an estimation of 4,000 tigers.
But then a whole series of different governance came, political will went down, and nobody was really interested in the issue in 1990s. Moreover, great illegal trade and demand of the tiger from China came up. They wanted the bones, skin, and tigers’ medicinal properties used for arthritis, aphrodisiac etc. Poachers too got more money to shoot tigers, so overall, it took a huge toll on tigers. And consequently, towards the end of 1990s, we had around 2,500 tigers left.
What also needs to be noted is that we followed a system of counting tigers through their pug marks on the ground, which was not very accurate as a system. Borrowing more precise systems from the world of science, we slowly engaged a new system which involved sample surveys, statistical surveys, using camera traps to do samples in different areas and so on, and by 2007 we came to a figure of 1,400, which was shocking as an estimation. After a few years, it came up to 1,700, and now it’s at 2,200.
So if we take the average of circumstances, mistakes and theories, it’s still about the same number as it was when Project Tiger had started. So, 40 years passed and we still have the same number of tigers. Obviously, we have a much bigger population, we have many more problems and pressures on our natural parks and forests because the population has grown, so even if we keep this stable amount, we are doing reasonably well. With this, we have 1.8 or 2 per cent population rise and still have a handle of 2,000 tigers, so that may not be bad but it’s the same figure as it was 40 years ago.
Regarding the amount of tigers that exist in India, we have a new estimation which is 2,226 and there is a big debate, an argument going on among scientists as to whether the methodology used in estimating this number of tigers is correct or not. Dr Ullas Karanth — one of the seniormost scientists who work with tigers in Karnataka, and also a part of the Government’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) — along with some other agencies, too have questioned the recent methodology and the figure of estimation of tigers in India.
It’s not easy to explain the technical issues as to why it’s so complicated but what needs to be noted is that it’s only the means that has been questioned, not the conclusion. Irrespective of a general acceptance of the figure of 2,000 plus tigers for India, a rigorous scientific debate on the methodology is essential for better management.
Till the scientific papers are published in reputed journals, we are not going to have the answers to this problem, but it seems generally clear that at this moment of time we have about 2,000 tigers and that’s a good handle to start on any major conservation project. This doesn’t mean that tigers have done well everywhere; I think the estimation went much more into inaccessible areas where there were tigers that were not discovered earlier. But this estimation also shows us that an old tiger reserve like the Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal has no tigers at all. So we have at least one tiger reserve with no tigers; the tigers were probably poached or there were never so many tigers in the first place and the figures were never valid, but these are lessons to learn.
The forest departments will have to learn how to count and estimate tigers accurately not just through the sample surveys that the Wildlife Institute of India does, but also by themselves. They have to become more knowledgeable about science and how tigers are estimated. We also have some tiger reserves that have been declared without any tigers in them. The Mukundara Tiger Reserve near Kota in Rajasthan has no tigers, for instance.
So the question we face is, what are we going to do in these areas; are we going to relocate tigers, where are we going to relocate them, who is going to do this, who has enough knowledge about tigersIJ So the last estimation posed a whole lot of fresh problems which I don’t think is going to be too much responsibility for the Government, but these issues are the responsibility of the State Governments. Managing tigers and looking after the forests is a State subject and we need to depend on innovative ideas which are empowered by Chief Ministers if we are going to save tigers in some of these areas.
It’s clear that we have some areas where tigers have done well, some areas where they haven’t done so well, some where they have been rediscovered in and we have to use the figure of 2,000 to see how far we can go. And that’s a question mark because it depends on political will; it depends on innovative, administrative and bureaucratic ideas that are implemented, it will not happen if we go on the way we are right now.
We are moving in a very slow, kind of non-enabling way in which tigers are governed. It takes so much time for money to reach the field, so much time for the implementation of a new policy and there are more accompanying problems in the way, so if Chief Ministers want to get their tiger population up, they will have to reform, restructure, rechange the mechanism for governance.
Public-Private partnerships
I think we have not been able to reform very much at all. I believe the future has to have public-private partnerships which we don’t have in the forest departments. We have them in other disciplines, like the passport office of Delhi is run with the Tata Consultancy Services, the airports are run privately, some of the docks are going to be run privately etc. But we don’t have it at all in the forest system. I think the forest officers who want to do the job of protecting tigers will have to work in partnership with those outside of the Government. I think these public-private partnerships will have to learn to flourish. Take tourism for instance; tourism as a tool for conservation is very important. It should be maintained by a private party. This is not the job of the forest department. In India, the forest departments look after tourism everywhere, so this is one area for a public-private partnership.
Wildlife science is very important; wildlife scientists are found all over India in different universities. They need to be engaged to work as partners with the director of a national park or forest where there are tigers. We have to encourage external talent, other than the Government’s. There’s certainly more credibility there. So this is going to be a major visionary approach, this involvement of the larger world. It shouldn’t be an attitude like, “Mera kaam hai, aap jaiye.” It’s a question of team spirit which is going to cause change.
Governmental reforms
The success of future strategies for conserving tigers will lie in innovative change and reform in the mechanisms of governance. We need to have simplified laws in the Government. We have very contradictory ones — the Wildlife Protection Act, the Forest Conservation Act, the Forest Rights Act, and all their amendments and Supreme Court interpretations, and so on. What we need is the best minds coming together to form a simple law, which governs wildlife, forest, tigers, what people can and can’t do, and more easily understandable laws. We need to have better anti-poaching activity, better convictions, so that the poachers are sent to jail and don’t escape.
In recent times, I have helped in forming a new Government scheme for Rajasthan. It’s called the Van Dhan Yojana, a conflict resolution scheme. It’s about how we can keep forest wealth intact and this scheme is being operationalised in Rajasthan around national parks and sanctuaries. It’s a scheme to boost the local economy using all green interventions which are sympathetic to the national park around. So you get a huge boost in alternative energy, bio-gas, dairy development, fruit orchards, planting trees, drip irrigation, working on educational projects in schools, and so on. The whole area of two square kilometres around national parks and sanctuaries will get a special administrative cell engaging both Government and non-Governmental people. There are about 140 schemes at every district level, so extracts from them will help reduce conflict. The Yojana is being quickly copied by Maharashtra too; they call it the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Van Jan Vikas Yojana. It’s important that people have empathy towards tiger conservation.
legal and financial reforms
We also require great legal reforms. We need financial reform because we need money that’s allocated, let’s say from the Central Government. The Central Government is basically only a funder and an advisor. It doesn’t run our national parks, that’s done by the States. So the money allocated should reach the parks very fast. At the moment it can take three to six months; it goes through 37 bureaucratic tables to reach the field and this needs to be paced up so that the people in the field have the money for implementation. Sometimes you get the money two months before the end of the financial year and that remains unutilised and has to be returned. We need good, solid financial reforms to handle that.
Forest training protocol
Pretty much everywhere we need a change in the mindset and attitude of the forest officer who is in charge. We need that change to come in their training protocol, in how they are recruited. I am a big believer of how we don’t need all India Forest Services, but we need to specialise in State services. The States are built up, that’s where the constitutional power to change and reform exists. It doesn’t exist with the Centre, we need forest officers to work for their States.
India has changed in 2015, but the Forest Services still has the colonial origins when it was the British Forest Service, and we have not really modified it to suit our new context. So we require that change in our personnel. What is needed immediately is the induction of 1,000 non-Governmental people with short-term contracts into the 48 tiger reserves to infuse fresh blood and ideas into the process of governance. It is these partnerships that will bring genuine change.
Administrative reforms
I am also a great believer of the administrative powers of lateral induction. It means that at senior positions, in the forest and hierarchy where people manage tigers, we can bring in the non-Governmental person on a contract and position him in the same designation as a senior park manager. It has been suggested by the Administrative Reforms Commission and I think it’s important to be implemented.
If we don’t engage the outside world and experts in decision-making, we wouldn’t succeed. They should sit with the teams and decide how to, say, resettle a village, how to work with local people, how to have more inclusive approaches, what to do about intelligence gathering, how to look after forest guards, and so on. All these things require partnerships. If these take place, there would be hope.
T24, the Ranthambore man-eater
I am very clear about T24; he is one of the most dangerous tigers I have ever seen. The forest department worked perfectly in the situation. They had to relocate him to Udaipur, they had no other choice. This has been vindicated by the detailed Rajasthan High Court judgement. And that judgement has also been supported by the Supreme Court which has called it the right process to follow. I am clear after 40 years of working with tigers that what happened with T24 had to happen, however sad it is. You cannot have man-eating tigers roaming in a national park or a tiger forest. T24 was a man-eater and any man-eater can seriously disrupt park management. Therefore, to prevent conflict with locals and forest staff, such tigers must be removed.
The forest department will not patrol on foot in that forest otherwise. Man-eaters stalk, kill and eat, so there would have been no patrolling at Ranthambore if T24 was kept there. That would have encouraged poachers to come in and shoot other normal tigers. T24 was not a normal tiger, he was dangerous. He ate two of the four people he killed, and that has never happened in the history of Ranthambore, unlike in, say, Maharashtra or Karnataka where there have been instances where one or two persons have been killed and the tiger had been shot dead. No one came and screamed about those incidents, but in this case when the tiger has been safely removed to an enclosure in the Sajjangarh Biological Park, there has been a huge outcry. So I do not support that. This had to be done in the interest of better management and forest administration who sacrificed their lives, however sad the fact is that a wild tiger had to go into a captive situation.
The tiger is like a large-hearted gentleman, nothing changes that. In the normal course of its life, it’s not interested in killing or attacking. In the tiger society, there’s a tiny percentage of killers; a tiger will leave us gently. Jim Corbett had realised that as well and it is still true. That’s the good faith we have on tigers, and people at large should understand that.
We also have to trust local knowledge. The forest guards and officers are doing a good job; 10-15 forest guards die every year saving the forests of India, 20 of them are disabled due to the timber or poaching mafias, and we need to remember that. We need to remember that the tiger is probably the most charismatic animal in the world and 600 million people go every year to see it in the zoos of the world every year.
I think at this moment of time it’s good that we have 2,000 tigers. We could be hopeful of the future if we have the right partnerships. We need to empower the State Governments to make the NTCA and the Ministry of Environment and Forests less involved in the tigers’ lives. They don’t have the power constitutionally to do anything for the tigers. They have to deal through the States; they have to be facilitators to the States. The federal Government has very little role, and may suggest inputs to the Chief Ministers. The NTCA and the Ministry should be smaller and smaller in terms of their inputs. This is a problem in India, that when you create something, it gets too big.
So I would suggest to downsize the NTCA and the Ministry. Federal structure must be downsized and the Central Government must encourage the States to create new mechanisms for governance. We have 17 State Governments that have tigers, so help them, empower them and let them get on with their job, and don’t interfere.
(As told to Ananya Borgohain)
Valmik Thapar is an Indian naturalist, conservationist and writer