Indo-Bangla pact for Sunderban tigers

The Indian government will reserve four seats for Bangladesh forest officials in the nine month diploma course at the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India to strengthen conservation measures in Bangladesh.

Updated on: Aug 13, 2012, 24:03:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee and Bangladesh will join hands for protection of tigers in Sunderbans.

The central government had put Teesta river treaty and land boundary agreement on hold after opposition from Mamata, a key ally of the UPA government.

But, the centre was able to have the West Bengal government on board with respect to having a joint monitoring and protection mechanism for Sunderban tigers. There are about 400 tigers in Sunderbans spread across West Bengal and Bangladesh but lack of coordination between the two governments has hampered conservation efforts.

"Both countries will undertake bilateral scientific and research projects to promote their understanding and knowledge of Royal Bengal Tigers in Sunderbans," said an agreement signed between India and Bangladesh government for tiger conservation recently.

The agreement also provides for collaboration in training and promotion of education in tiger conservation without undertaking any activity which can dampen the unique bio-diversity of mangrove rich Sunderbans. However, the agreement will not impose any restriction on border domination activities.

As per the agreement, there will be a special committee on either side of the border to look into the issue of human casualties because of tiger attacks and monitoring of tiger population. These committees from both sides of the border will meet regularly to share experiences and implement similar projects, government officials said.

The Indian government will also reserve four seats for Bangladesh forest officials in the nine month diploma course at the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India to strengthen conservation measures in Bangladesh.

India has taken a global lead in tiger protection by providing training to forest department officials from 13 tiger range countries and sharing its success from tiger reserves in India. Bangladesh is the latest beneficiary of India's rich experience in tiger conservation.

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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