Tiger numbers up, but habitat a worry

The government on Monday will announce that India’s tiger population has increased but it may not be a reason for cheer with inviolate space for the big cat decreasing. Not so bright

Updated on: Mar 28, 2011, 02:04:44 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government on Monday will announce that India’s tiger population has increased but it may not be a reason for cheer with inviolate space for the big cat decreasing.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh will announce an increase of over 100 tigers as first reported by HT on February 19 in major tiger landscapes at a three-day international conference of experts on tigers.

According to ministry sources, more number of tigers have been spotted in Ranthambore in Rajasthan, Corbett in Uttaranchal, Kaziranga in Assam, Bandipur in Karnataka, Periyar in Kerala, Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh, Andheri-Todaba and Melghat in Maharashtra.

The tiger estimation has not shown comparatively good results in Arunchal Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa, sources said.

The good news will be coming from Central and Western Indian landscape, where tiger population had dwindled the most in the last estimation in 2008.

"A tiger from Ranthambore took a historical route to Kuno in Madhya Pradesh. That shows tigers are doing well," a ministry official said.

"Where is the habitat to keep so many tigers safe?" asked Vivek Menon, chief executive officer of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).

"Constant habitat destruction and illegal mining is causing the wildlife stress," Dharmendra Kandhal, a Ranthambore based wildlife biologist said.

As per the government's own study tiger reserves in India cannot hold more than 1,000 to 1,200 tigers and forest have witnessed a degradation in the last two decades.

The core tiger area has shrunk to 31,207 sq kilometers in from over one lakh sq kms in 1970s, when Project Tiger was launched. Ramesh has admitted that India cannot increase its forest cover.

Other experts such as Belinda Wright of Wildlife Protection Society of India poaching treat and fall in prey population in tiger habitats is a reason for concern.

"If the population has really increased we can witness more tiger deaths because of their conflict with their own community for space and people living around tiger areas," said a Wildlife Institute of India scientist, who was not willing to be quoted.

The Wildlife Institute of India, which is conducting the estimation, has captured pictures of 12 tigresses with cubs in Dudwa tiger reserve in Uttar Pradesh, where a tiger killed two persons.

In Tadoba-Andhari tiger reserve in Maharashtra, where six people had died in conflict, two tigresses with cubs have been spotted in the buffer area.

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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