Tigers may vanish from 7 more parks

If two tiger reserves — Panna in MP and Sariska in Rajasthan — are now bereft of tigers, seven others may well follow in their footsteps if urgent measures are not taken. The number of tigers in all seven is fast depleting, reports Chetan Chauhan. Big trouble for big cat

Updated on: Jul 28, 2009, 24:59:23 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Sariska

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If two tiger reserves — Panna in MP and Sariska in Rajasthan — are now bereft of tigers, seven others may well follow in their footsteps if urgent measures are not taken. The number of tigers in all seven is fast depleting.

Environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh has sounded a ‘Save Tiger’ alert for the Buxa reserve in West Bengal, Namdapha in Arunachal Pradesh, Manas in Assam, Valmiki in Bihar, Simlipal in Orissa, Indravati in Chhattisgarh and Palamu in Jharkhand.

“The tiger population in these reserves is going down and the protection measures are poor,” he said while addressing field directors of 37 tiger reserves in Sariska on Friday. “Unless we take immediate steps, we’ll lose the tigers in these reserves.”

The Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is the most common subspecies of tiger, found primarily in India and Bangladesh. In 2006, at the time of the last estimate, India’s tiger population was 1,411. Since then, about 100 tigers have died because of poaching, natural reasons and man-animal conflict.

“In the past few months, not one of the 12 Royal Bengal Tigers believed to be in Buxa, in Jalpaiguri district, has been spotted,” said Yogendra Jhala of the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India.

The indicators from the other six reserves are also alarming.

n Manas had 40 tigers in 2006. But large-scale deforestation has made the big cat easy meat for poachers. Four deaths have already been reported in 2009.

n In Valmiki, the tiger count was estimated at 10 in 2006. This year, poachers from Nepal have been active in the reserve. Conservation is poor.

n In Simplipal, with an estimated 40 tigers in 2006, the tiger population density is shrinking. In 2008-09, it had reduced to two tigers per 100 sq km from the ideal two per 10 sq km. Poachers have been caught on camera killing prey.

n In Indravati, no tiger estimate has been carried out in nine years. At last count, in 2000, the reserve recorded a population of over 100 tigers. The fear is that the Naxalites could be killing tigers to raise funds.

n Owing to the Naxalite menace, no tiger count was carried out in Palamu in 2006. Poacher presence is rampant in the vicinity of the reserve.

n In Namdapha, the tiger estimate was 12 in 2006. No big cat has been spotted in the core area in the past 12 months.

The situation is grim, says P.K. Sen, former director, Project Tiger, the nodal body for tiger reserves.

“Thirty per cent of the reserves are in a shambles. The habitat is good but tigers are dying because of a lack of measures to protect them from poaching.”

The solution, Sen says, is greater coordination between the Centre and the states to counter poaching.

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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