Grade 12 English Project 2

Project Tiger

Introduction

While reading the chapter “The Tiger King”, I was appalled to see the nonchalance expressed while talking about the continuous killing of tigers. These majestic animals are endangered and have several ongoing conservation efforts to help them merely survive, including Project Tiger.

Project Tiger was an initiative launched from the Jim Corbett National Park of Uttarakhand on 1st April 1973, under the reign of the Indira Gandhi administration.

The initiative is funded by the Union Government of India and administrated under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is the immediate supervising agency.

This initiative was welcomed as the status of the Royal Bengal Tigers preceding it was alarming to say the least. Back in the early 19th century, There were about 40,000 Royal Bengal Tigers in India. Within seven decades, Royal Bengal Tiger’s population dwindled to a mere 1800. It was a reflection of the neglect that was being heaped upon the National Animal of India. It was an undeniable failure.

At the beginning of this endeavour, India only had nine tiger reserves. There are currently 53 such reserves spread across 18 states in India that are home to tigers. The Melghta and the Kanha national parks were the first reserves to be included in Project Tiger. Currently, the project covers more than 2% of the country’s total land, with 71,000 sq km of protected area.

The Coming of Project Tiger

Since the turn of the last century, hunting, poaching and habitat destruction had decimated the Tiger population in India.

The demand for parts of the Tiger for traditional ancient medicine and to showcase of bravado on the part of the people of India after Independence from British Rule, resulted the tiger population coming to an all-time low after they were treated like vermin in India.

It was only till around 1970, after a period of sustained pressure and data collection by notable Zoologist and Conservationist Mr. Kailash Sankhla, the Government of India was made aware of the need to protect the massacred Tiger and the importance of protecting it as a keystone species. This led to the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 being drafted which banned hunting of all species of Wildlife and offered them legal protection in India.

Mr. Kailash Sankhla was appointed as the first Director of Project Tiger.

The Aims of the Project

The stated aims of Project Tiger were

To identify factors causing a reduction in tiger habitats and mitigate them through suitable management practices. The damages already done to the habitat were to be corrected so that the natural ecosystem can be recovered to the extent possible.
To maintain a viable tiger population for their economic, ecological, cultural, and aesthetic significance.

Management of the Project

Project Tiger was administered by the National Tiger Conservation Authority. The overall administration of the project is monitored by a steering committee, which is headed by a director. A field director is appointed for each reserve, who is assisted by a group of field and technical personnel.

For each tiger reserve, management plans were drawn up based on the following principles:

Elimination of all forms of human exploitation and biotic disturbance from the core area and rationalization of activities in the buffer zone
Restricting the habitat management only to repair the damages done to the ecosystem by human and other interferences to facilitate recovery of the ecosystem to its natural state
Monitoring the faunal and floral changes over time and carrying out research about wildlife

Strategies employed under the Initiative

A major strategy employed was the Core-Buffer strategy, implemented in tiger reserves, where each tiger reserve was divided into two areas:

Core Area/Critical Tiger Habitat
- No human activity, other than for conservation-related or park-management is allowed here.
- Tourism is permitted, however, only upto 20% of the core area is open for tourists according to NTCA guidelines.
- These areas typically have a status of National Park or Wildlife Sanctuary.
Buffer Area
- Demarcated areas adjoining or surrounding the Core Area are known as the Buffer Area.
- It serves as a habitat supplement to the spillover population of wild animals from the core area.
- Activities such as livestock grazing, controlled collection of firewood and minimal usage of forest produce for the sake of livelihood by the locals is permitted.

Forest Check-Posts and Patrolling Camps have been established across Tiger Reserves in the Core and Buffer areas to mitigate poaching threats and ensure management of the reserve and swift action in case of emergency situations.

Village Relocation

Village relocation was a mammoth task, as many villages located in the identified Critical Tiger Habitats in India, and in new areas scouted for establishment of new Tiger Reserve had to be moved. While some villages relocate voluntarily, most others resist giving up their ancestral dwellings. The issue gets even more sensitive in the case of tribal communities.

Villages received compensatory packages for moving out of the Critical Tiger Habitat, along with government assistance. 56,247 families across 751 villages of the 50 Tiger Reserves have been earmarked for relocation, out of which 12,327 families from 173 villages have been successfully relocated out of these areas.

Tiger Task Force

In light of heavy poaching and formation of strong poaching networks by smugglers within India, a need for greater monitoring and an additional a layer of protection was included in the year 2005.

The Prime Minister of India Mr. Manmohan Singh thus set up the Tiger Task Force to strengthen the conservation of the tiger.

Objectives of the Tiger Task Force:

Looking into the various problems of Tiger Conservation and suggesting methods for its improvement.
Improving methods to check-poaching of tigers and illegal practices followed in the wildlife sanctuaries.
To improve the method of counting and forecasting Tigers.
To educate the local indigenous population inhabitant in the parks towards the conservation of tigers.
The task force should submit its reports within
3 months from the date of notification and should review it from time to time.
Improve efforts to mitigate wildlife crime and to break the international trade network in wildlife body parts and derivatives.
The sitting fees and travel cost would be reimbursed to the members of the Task Force as per the norms.
Expanding the undisturbed areas for tigers by reducing the human activities in that area.

Results and Impacts

These efforts have shown relative success, and from the figures of 1400 or so Tigers in India in 2006, the figures of the 2018 census show an increase as the figures stand at almost 3000 Tigers according to official government reports. Adopting more effective use of technology to crack down international poaching mafias and better ground-level management has resulted in a reduction in poaching. Methods of counting Tigers have provided more accurate results, due to the increased use of camera-traps rather than the Pug-mark casting method. This has resulted in discovery of Tigers in new habitats and a more scientific and fool-proof method of counting tigers which was used a decade ago is now in place.

Conclusion

As we can see, Project Tiger was set up with noble intentions, but there are still threats to the project which reduce its positive effect. The large population of almost 1.38 billion in the country increase the pressure on land and natural resources. Along with reduced literacy, the conservation of tigers and thus their future is thus far from secure. Furthermore, poaching is still a prevalent problem, despite several measures taken to counteract it.

A seismic shift in mindset of Indian citizens and favourable government policies towards Sustainable Development are the need of the hour today. Achieving this reality is still a while away in India. India's protected forest cover is about 3% of its total land mass today.

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