Tiger relocation caught in poll net

Relocation of a tigress from the Kanha sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh to the neighbouring Panna tiger reserve, where the animal population has recorded a drastic fall in the last four years, got caught in the electoral politics, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Mar 9, 2009, 02:35:56 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Relocation of a tigress from the Kanha sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh to the neighbouring Panna tiger reserve, where the animal population has recorded a drastic fall in the last four years, got caught in the electoral politics on Sunday.

Led by BJP’s Member of Parliament Faggan Singh Kulaste — one of the members who flashed currency notes in the Lok Sabha during the July 22, 2008 trust vote —legislator Narayan Patta and a minister, locals didn’t allow the big cat to be flown to Panna.

The protesters, which also included hoteliers and guides, said relocation would hit tourism. “In four years, Panna has lost 28 tigers. We’re protesting as safety of tigers in Panna is still under cloud,” Kulaste told HT from Kanha.

He quoted a report submitted to the Supreme Court by tiger scientist Dr Raghu Chandawat. The report blamed poaching for tiger deaths in Panna. Sunday’s protest was the first after Chandawat moved the SC in 2004.

“The tigresses being relocated are radio-collared for monitoring through satellite systems and manually through a dedicated team of forest guards,” L.K. Chaudhary, field director of Panna reserve, had told HT on Saturday.

Maheshwari Navneet, a wildlife watcher, who moved the Madhya Pradesh High Court for a stay on relocation, said the tigress was being relocated from the core area in violation of the guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority. “Moreover, a pregnant tigress is being relocated to show that the animals mated within days of reaching Panna. This is a cover-up,” he alleged.

The view found an echo in a letter sent to the Prime Minister by experts like Belinda Wright, Valmik Thapar and Bitto Seghal. They said the relocation was being done in most “unscientific” manner and demanded a CBI inquiry into tiger deaths in Panna.

The forest department, however, will go ahead with the plan. “Once we catch the tigress, she’ll be relocated to Panna,” a senior official, who didn’t wish to be identified, said. Principal conservator of forests H.S. Pabla could not be contacted.

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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