50 yrs of ‘project tiger’— is it on rails?
By Col Satish Singh Lalotra
‘Being alone is a power few can handle’—Anonymous
Living beings, be it humans or animals or even plants draw sustenance from each other’s presence driven by the need to feel secure ,intermingle amongst themselves or their own ilk or even compete for a higher position in the hierarchy of their being .
The ecosystem is made in such a way that both biotic and abiotic parts of this system either sustain themselves or wither away wrought by the time and tide of events respectively.
In the animal kingdom within this planet of ours, there are very few large sized animals which go solo (alone) in all their endeavours from ‘womb to tomb’ excepting in their formative years.
Tiger is one such large sized carnivore which holds the pride of place in our ecosystem that epitomizes power in its entirety, since it goes all alone in his hunting, living, procreating and finally marking of his territorial limits of his hunting efforts.
The magnificent ‘Panthera Tigris’ , a striped carnivore with thick yellow coat of fur with dark stripes is a combination of grace ,power ,strength, agility, and enormous power to have earned the pride of place as the national animal of India. For many readers of this article, it may be news that as late as March 1973, Asiatic Lion used to be national animal of India.
But then seeing its very limited spread in a remote western corner of Gujarat at Gir forest, and not in entire India a more magnificent carnivore with an evenly spread from Himachal Pradesh to Arunachal Pradesh to Kerala upped the ante and fitted in the bill for being nominated as the national animal of India.
In order to conserve the Tiger population in the country, GOI launched ‘Project Tiger’ on 01st April 1973 exactly half a century ago, the largest conservation effort anywhere in the world in co-operation with WWF (World wild life). ‘Project Tiger’ was set up under the PM ship of Mrs Indira Gandhi as its chairman with Dr Karan singh as vice -chairman and Rajasthan forest officer K.S Shankhla as the first project director.
Since this magnificent beast is always on the radar of poachers, freelance hunters, as also dwindling catchment areas for their prey the NTCA (National tiger conservation authority) was formed in December 2005 following the recommendations of ‘TIGER TASK FORCE’ constituted by the PM of India for reorganized management of ‘ Project Tiger’ and the many tiger sanctuaries in India. The stated recommendations of the said task force were as follows-
* Reinvigorating the constitution of governance.
* Strengthening efforts towards protection of tiger, checking poaching, convicting wildlife criminals, and breaking the international trade network in wild life body parts and derivatives of tiger.
* Expanding the undisturbed areas for tiger by reducing human presence.
* Repair the relationships with the local people who share the tiger habitats by investing in forest, by fielding strategies for co-existence.
* Regenerate the forest habitats in the fringe areas of the tigers by forming protective enclaves by investing in forest, water and grassland economies of the people.
Be that as it may the aim of my write up is to put under the scanner the above mentioned recommendations in the right perspective to watch if they have yielded desired results or not and also see which way the project is headed? India has seen an extensive expansion of protected areas, tiger reserves and now, a push for tiger corridors all driven by colonial exclusionary conservation practices.
As per the data from the ‘National wildlife database cell’ ,India has a network 990 protected areas which cover approximately 5.27% of the total geographical area of the country. This includes 106 national parks,565 wild life sanctuaries,100 conservation reserves, and 219 community reserves. Adding to this is India’s network of 55 tiger reserves (TRs).
Notification of PA’s (protected areas) in India is overseen by central legislation called as ‘Wild life protection act’ (WLPA) whereas the NTCA (National tiger conservation authority) a body constituted under the same law oversees TRs.
The year 2021-22 saw some states in the country going on a PA declaration spree, with Maharashtra state board for wild life alone notifying three (3) new wild life sanctuaries and almost 30 new conservation reserves in various stages of approval.
As stated above since the launch of’ Project Tiger’ in 1973, the tiger has been made the center of focus of conservation of governance in India. That brings me to my first point of contention in direct contravention to the recommendations of the ‘Tiger task force’ i.e governance rules of ‘tiger Conservation by eliminating human presence’ which is a flawed concept of animal conservation.
The latest tiger census reports indicate the last recorded tiger population of India standing at 2967, which is 70% of the world tiger population. What an impressive data.
The 55 tiger reserves in India cover a total area of about more than 74,000 sq km out of which, 41500 sq km forms the critical tiger habitat whereas the remainder is the so called ‘Buffer zone’.
The idea of corridor-based conservation has off late caught the fancy of Indian conservationists. The NTCA in its 2014 report ‘Connecting tiger populations for long term conservation’ cited how the Indian sub-continent alone holds 6 global priority tiger conservation landscapes of long term significance and 32 tiger corridors as also ensuring connecting these with one another. The (NWAP) 2017-31, National wildlife action plans also stressed upon identification of wildlife corridors outside PAs (protected areas).
That is where the whole rub lies. Even for a layman on casting a glance at any of the maps of any tiger conservation corridor will reveal how the tiger reserves and corridors are being imposed on a raft of forest lands, human habitations, agricultural fields, pasture lands and scarce water sources.
The first recommendation of Tiger task force has to be clubbed with the third recommendation which in so many words say —to expand the tiger corridors by reducing human presence compelling us all to see the lopsided aspect of governance.
These landscapes are actually living, breathing human -inhabited places, home to adivasis like the Korkus,Gonds and Baigas in the central province of India and even in the neighbouring ‘Melghat tiger reserve and Pench tiger reserve spanning over both states of Maharashtra and MP. I have myself witnessed the majority of Korku tribesmen evicted from the STR (Satpura tiger reserve) at Madhai near Hoshangabad for making way for the tiger corridors when I visited STR in 2011.
Now using the imagery of these corridors, the state can acquire any land and convert it into a protected area which will sound a death knell to these tribal people. Although conservation corridors are an old concept it has given a new fillip to coercive control of lands thus exacerbating societal tensions in the country as such.
This is self-evident in the way abrupt and break neck speed with which certain states are going about this concept with relocations speeding up in other protected areas. As per the data shared by the MoEFCC (Ministry of environment forest and conservation) in the lok sabha as late as 2019 ,out of 57386 families living inside the critical tiger habitat(CTH) of 52 tiger reserves around 14,441 families had been shifted.
NTCA in 2020 was altogether on a different plane with their assertions that 63,916 families in 761 villages living inside the CTH (Critical tiger habitat) of tiger reserves and 18,493 families of 215 villages had been relocated from the notified CTH since the inception of Project tiger.
Ground report tells us the number of people impacted is far more and will only grow with more tiger corridors in the offing, thereby pooh-poohing one of the stated recommendations of ‘Tiger task force’ that lays stress on expanding the tiger corridors by reducing human presence.
As if the above stated facts don’t nail the inflated conservation efforts of GOI, the center for financial accountability (CFA) in a recent report cited a spurt in the infrastructure projects in and around the protected areas.
As per CFAs analysis, MoEFCC received around 2592 proposals for environment clearance between July 2014 and April 2020 ,of which 2256 proposals were approved marking a 87% clearance rate. What a stupendous achievement. But at what cost? More importantly 270 projects were located in and around these protected areas, thus deflating the very purpose of creating these protected areas.
Is the minister of forest, environment and conservation taken on board for these anomalies? Further 680 projects were given wildlife clearances between 2015 -2020 by national board for wildlife(NBWL) as revealed in the Rajya sabha by the MoEFCC in September 2020.
The majority of oil and gas deposits are located in these landscapes with corporate extraction instead of being monitored is being facilitated through ease given by these clearances.
Is this facet not interference in the tiger conservation? If not, then why not? What will it take the GOI to apply due diligence in according clearance to these corporate interests?
The ‘Convention of biological diversity since its inception in 1992 recognised the role of indigenous people (tribals in our context) through articles 8(i) & 10(c) .
Yet these indigenous people have been excluded at both state level and the national level in India from these discussions and decisions about the land usage, their inhabitants and natural resources they depend upon.
In the Indian context the FRA( Forest rights act) passed in 2006 envisions and ensures the same by legally recognizing the role of these adivasis and other forest dependent communities in the protection, conservation and management of the ecosystems.
But does it happen in our context.? While posted at Itarsi in MP way back from 2010 till 2012 I was witness to scores of Korku tribal people living on the margins with their families trudging miles on the Betul-Hoshangabad highway with small wicker baskets perched on their heads in search of Tendu leaves.
Why couldn’t these people be ensured a proper captive area in their near vicinity for tendu leaves collection and their marketing by the state government? It shows that they have been disregarded by the authorities in their welfare.
The FRA empowers these tribals to stop any activity which is detrimental to their growth. But then all boils down to its implementation, which is a big NO in India.
This brings me to the last recommendation as enshrined by the Tiger task force —“Regenerate the forest habitats in the fringe areas of the tigers by forming protective enclaves through investing in forest, water and grasslands economies of the people’.
But having gone through the details as appended by me in this write up as also diluting the FRA by the authorities is there a remote chance of these targets being met?
As if the above dichotomies are not enough, few months back the union state minister of MoEFCC, Ashwini Kumar Choubey came up with a most preposterous idea of renaming the Jim Corbett tiger reserve on the name of ‘Ram Ganga‘ tiger reserve which incidentally flows in the midst of this tiger reserve.
With the ‘Project tiger well with in crossing half a century of its inception I am of the considered opinion that a major and thorough course correction of this project is the need of the hour so as to meet the lofty aspirations of conservation of this magnificent carnivore as set forth by our former PM Mrs Indira Gandhi and the erst while vice chairman Dr Karan singh of PROJECT TIGER.
The writer is a retired army officer)
