Tigers, elephants getting pushed into ‘conflict’ zone

Shrinking habitat for wildlife is making tigers and elephants vulnerable to man-animal conflict, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Mar 10, 2010, 24:53:44 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Shrinking habitat for wildlife is making tigers and elephants vulnerable to man-animal conflict. As many as 31 elephants and five tigers have died because of this conflict in the past year, data released by NGO Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) said.

The issue cropped against last Sunday with two tiger cubs allegedly poisoned to death in a day by villagers in outskirts of Ranthambore tiger reserve. State Chief wildlife warden R.N. Mehrotra said at least four cubs have been wandering for the last four months in the outer areas of the reserve and may have killed some goats as prey. In retaliation the villagers poisoned two cubs. In January this year, a tiger was allegedly poisoned in Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh and another died of suspected poisoning in Bareilli district of Uttar Pradesh. “Both tigers were victims of revenge killing by villagers,” said an environment ministry official.

Data with the environment ministry has shown that forest areas for tigers and elephants have shrunk by 15-20 per cent in the last two decades. India has 88 identified elephant corridors connecting habitats of 27,000 elephants, whose population is rising since 2000.

“The corridors have shrunk forcing elephants to wander into agriculture fields. And, it has caused conflict in Uttarakhand and West Bengal,” said A.N. Prasad, director of Protect Elephants in the environment ministry. The result of this has been death of 31 elephants and injury to many more.

The wildlife experts, however, find a thin difference between revenge killing and poaching. “Last year, a water hole was poisoned in Central India killing 20-25 animals. It was basically an attempt to poach a tiger,” said Tito Joseph of NGO WPSI.

Problem of shrinking habitats is more in reserve with good wildlife population such as Corbett Tiger Reserve.

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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