'Happy with new tiger estimation figure'

As the number of tigers in India increased from 1,411 to 1,706 in four years, Chetan Chauhan speaks with environment minister Jairam Ramesh on new figures.

Updated on: Mar 28, 2011, 20:28:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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As the number of tigers in India increased from 1,411 to 1,706 in four years, Chetan Chauhan speaks with environment minister Jairam Ramesh on new figures.

Q. What is your take on new tiger estimation figure?

A. First of all, I think the broad news is positive. A like for like comparison to 1411 tigers in 2006 has now become 1636, which is about 12 % increase. The best estimate for 2010 is 1,706. I am removing 70 tigers of Sunderbans. That is the good news. Second bit of good news has come from south India, terrai region and Maharashtra as tigers there are doing well. Third food news is that we have 650 photographs of tigers as compared to 500 last time. So, I think very good exercise we have done. One in every four sq kms of tiger areas have been camera trapped. Average period of camera trap was 60 days. We can now say camera trap methodology is well-established.

Q What is the flip side of the Census?

A. Bad news is there has been decline in area of tiger occupancy from nine million hectares to about seven million hectares. It has happened largely in northern Andhra Pradesh and Central India. That is a cause for concern. I am disappointed with very poor count of tigers in northeastern India, which has good tiger habitats.

Q What are the reasons for shrinkage in tiger areas?

A. Corridors are under severe threat. First victim of national highways or mining project are tiger corridors. The threat is not coming from poaching, it is from the development itself. The way we plan our national highways and the way we do our coal mining are not tiger friendly. We need to discuss this at a national level.

Q. The estimation has found that many tigers are outside the protected areas. Isn't it a reason of concern?

A. We on 39 tiger reserves. But, one-third of our tigers are outside our tiger reserves. We don't have a strategy to deal with the tigers outside the tiger reserves. We have to do better forestry and corridor management to protect them. While it is good that tiger population is cause for some satisfaction, the challenges remain. For two long in our country the tiger
debate has concentrated on Ranthambore, Corbett and Kanha. We must look at south India, which has single largest concentration of tigers in the world. If we have to provide life to tigers we have to think beyond Corbetts and Ranthambores.

Q. What are the surprises for you in the estimation?

A. Increase in tiger numbers in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh is a pleasant surprise to me. Everyone was feeling that there are more tigers there but now it has been confirmed.

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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