Tie up with locals to save tiger: film

Krishnendu Bose's film Tiger-The Death Chronicles shows how natives have teamed up with forest department officials at the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttaranchal and BRT Sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh and helped protect the tiger, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Aug 26, 2007, 05:02:36 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A DOCUMENTARY on the country’s rapidly-declining tiger population may provide some answers to the government and experts who are debating whether humans and tigers can co-exist.

According to the latest government estimate, the tiger population in the country is in the range of 1,300 to 1,500—a considerable drop from 3,642 tigers in 2001.

Krishnendu’s Bose’s Tiger – The Death Chronicles is based on visits to eight states which are home to the majority of the tigers. The film, which was screened on Friday, shows how natives have teamed up with forest department officials at the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttaranchal and BRT Sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh and helped the tiger survive. The International Union for Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) recently rated the Corbett National Park as one of the best-managed tiger reserves in the country.

Both reserves have something in common—local residents depend on the forest for their sustenance. And in the process of providing for themselves, they conserve the forests helping in the protection of the tiger, Bose says. In BRT, tribals worship the tiger.

Central India has witnessed a dramatic fall of 65 per cent in the tiger population as forests are being used for mining and other commercial purposes. The encroachment on the tiger’s habitat has led to a drastic fall in their numbers and forced them to come in conflict with humans.

Bose has also documented how the Supreme Court’s ban on the use of forest produce by traditional users leads to commercial usage and the destruction of forest cover.

Then, there are reserves like Buxa in West Bengal, where tiger sightings are extremely rare. But government records have consistently recorded the number of tigers in the reserve as over 30. Raghu Chandawat, who radio-collared six tigers in Buxa, said three big cats went missing without a trace in a space of two years. However, the field director of the reserve denied this.

The documentary also demonstrates two perspectives on the on tiger-human conflict. The view held by experts such as Valmik Thapar and former director of Project Tiger P K Sen is that human interference should not be allowed and all 5,000 villages which fall within tiger reserves be relocated. On the other hand, environmentalists like Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment, suggest relocation only in extreme cases.

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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