Improved habitat can double tiger count

Eighteen sites in India can support up to 1,500 tigers more than the country’s present big cat’s population, provided resources are utilised for rejuvenating these sites, a global study on tigers has found. Chetan Chauhan writes. Where the big cats live

Updated on: Sep 23, 2010, 01:34:54 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Eighteen sites in India can support up to 1,500 tigers more than the country’s present big cat’s population, provided resources are utilised for rejuvenating these sites, a global study on tigers has found.

There are less than 3,500 tigers in wild around the world of which 1,411 are in India with its habitat falling by over 50 per cent in last 30 years. Globally, tigers now occupy less than seven per cent of their historical geographical landscape.

“India provides powerful, contrasting examples of what works and what does not for saving tigers,” said the report, Bringing the Tiger Back from Extinction. It described India’s bid to save tigers as “confused”.

“Instead of announcing new tiger reserves (which increased from 27 to 39 in two years) the government should focus on providing on best habitats where tigers can survive,” said an expert.

The study by 23 global wildlife experts under the aegis of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) provides solutions and will be released by Russian president Vladimir Putin in November as part of Global Tiger Initiative, to which India is a signatory.

For India, the recommendation is clear: concentrate on 16 source sites, which have 1,000 tigers over one year of age and can support up to 1,500 tigers, rather than “over wider landscapes”.

The study has identified 42 “source sites”, each with over 25 breeding tigresses, of which 18 are in India.

The best sites in India (see graphic) are Kaziranga tiger reserve in Assam with density of 16.8, where the density can increase to 18 and three sites in Central India and two in Western Ghats, where the density can increase by 60-70 percent.

“These sites have potential for providing safe homes to tigers but we need specific policy framework for this,” said Ravi Chellam, Director of WCS India, whose research contributed to the study.

Protecting and conserving these habitats could mean that number of tigers increases to 3,000 tigers in only 10 per cent of suitable habitat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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