REPORT OF THE TIGER TASK FORCE

A Brief Review Of Joining the Dots

Abhay Kumar

THE Task Force for Reviewing the Management of Tiger Reserves submitted its full and comprehensive report to the prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh on August 5, 2005. The task force was constituted in April 2005, with eminent experts and scientists on the committee. H S Panwar, Professor Madhav Gadgil, Valmik Thapar, Samar Singh and Sunita Narain were appointed as members of this committee, with Sunita Narain as the chairperson. The committee submitted the report titled Joining the Dots, along with a note of dissent by Valmik Thapar and a reply by Sunita Narain. The task force was constituted in the immediate context of reports of an alarming decrease in the population of tigers in the Sariska tiger reserves.

The disappearance of tigers from Sariska, however, is not an isolated incident. On the contrary, it is symptomatic of the general rot that has permeated the planning and management of tiger conservation in our country. It is not adequate to put the blame on poachers. A flawed conservation strategy, an outdated method of measuring tiger population and an insensitive, lethargic and corrupt bureaucracy have primarily been responsible for this sharp decline in the tiger population in the country. Poaching is perhaps only a logical outcome of a decadent system.

In terms of the approach to the whole issue of conservation, the report placed by the present Task Force marks a crucial departure from earlier such reports, or, for that matter, from any other recommendation placed by official committees on policy initiatives related to the environment. This report correctly identifies the reasons for the near failure of tiger management plan and accordingly suggests new measures. Some of these measures, if implemented, will usher in a new conservation strategy in which people are given due importance and the issue of their livelihood is not seen as necessarily antagonistic to environmental conservation. The report recommends that common people, their livelihood and their dependence upon the forest for immediate resources be included within the ambit of conservation efforts.

People and their environment form a rather close and integrated unit. It would not be correct to treat them as two separate entities, and to ignore the organic links between them. In the name of being focused, some scientists and experts undertake exclusivist conservation efforts. Thereby, causing more harm to the cause of conservation than actually helping it. Project Tiger is a case in point. Rather than involving local communities and native populations into conservation efforts, these exclusivist conservationists have relegated local communities to the fringes. The local people are made out to be enemies of the conservation rather than being friends. It is no surprise that the poaching mafia is able to take the help of local people in killing animals. All efforts to stop poaching by bringing in police and arms and ammunitions have practically yielded no results.

INNOVATIVE PROPOSALS

The task force recommends a set of proposals, which are innovative in its outlook and approach the entire issue from several relevant angles thereby making the report not only comprehensive but holistic as well.  The innovative protection agenda includes the issue of relocating villages situated inside tiger reserves and their coexistence with tiger habitat. This innovation flows from the paradigm shift –– a shift from exclusivist conservation efforts to inclusive conservation efforts.

The report cites precedents of communities and nations where killers of animals actually became protectors after efforts were made to bring them back into the conservation plan. Report cites examples of Periyar tiger reserves in Kerala and similar examples from Cambodia. In Cambodia, the local officials appointed hunters as the wildlife rangers who in turn helped in regulating the hunting of tigers. Their knowledge of forest and wildlife, which came from having the organic links with the forest and wildlife, helped them in their pursuits. Such efforts gave due consideration to their socio-economic and ecological needs. Similarly, in Periyar tiger reserves in Kerala, former elephant poachers and smugglers of cinnamon bark were employed as members of the patrol team to prevent any poaching in the area. In this regard the report recommends that ‘… wherever possible, communities of the forest dependent or the hunters should become the first option to look to for recruitment and creation of intelligent protection forces.’

As for relocating human populations living in the vicinity of tiger habitat is concerned, the report recommends, ‘There should be an urgent and realist review of the number of villages that actually need to be relocated from the reserves. The decision must be based on the fact that the villages that need to be relocated are so made to do so because they are located in the critical habitats –– tiger natal areas and key conservation priority areas.’ It goes on to say, ‘the scheme must take into account the options for livelihood in the resettled village. It is important for planners to take into account the fact that people who live within the reserves are forest-dependent communities, and survive within agro-silvo-pastoral economies. The relocation package must be designed to provide viable alternatives. Currently, there is no grazing land or irrigated agricultural facilities offered in the relocation package. This means that people have no alternative but to revert to the forest fringe survival’. This, in effect, means that there is no need to relocate all villages situated inside the forest reserves. Rather the decision to relocate villages has to be based on the judicious understanding of the ecological balance between the human habitat and tiger habitat in accordance with the socio-economic cost of relocating villages. Such recommendations from an official committee are remarkable in themselves, given the fact that the track record of the Indian State in relocating villages or affected population is dismal to say the least. In the last couple of decades, proper rehabilitation has been the main demand of a majority of people’s movements on environmental issues. It is interesting to note that the debate between Valmik Thapar and Sunita Narain, chairperson of the task force, has ensued precisely on these lines.

This brings into focus the ongoing debate on Schedule Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005. The draft bill seeks to take a middle path between the two approaches to environmental conservation. Conventional conservationists, wildlife and animal rights’ activists are opposed to the creation of land and forest area on the pretext that it will lead to further degradation of natural resources. There are also those environmentalists and tribal rights’ activists who argue that the Bill is very limited in character and does not meet the aims that it sets out for itself. The government needs to take these concerns into account while bringing amendments in the bill. It is this holistic approach to the whole question of conservation in our country that will bring some degree of harmony between the human beings and wildlife. Only then, perhaps, tigers will be protected and their gene pool conserved.

Another remarkable proposal of the task force is to recommend all hotels within a radius of 5 km. from the boundary of a reserve to pay 30 percent of their turnover to the reserve. Given the fact that the hotels, located in the vicinity of a reserve, draw their profits mainly from the immense tourist potential of such tiger reserves, it is only correct or makes a sound economic logic that they should be asked to pay back some of their earnings to the reserves. The lack of such provisions till now only shows a half-hearted approach to the protection of tigers in situ.

The report also outlines the science and research agenda for the protection of tigers. The pugmark count method, which is in use to estimate the tiger population, has not kept pace with other technological advancements in our country. Given the small population of tigers in any unit, the error percentage associated with the pugmark count method may mean either an overestimation or underestimation of tiger population. It is, therefore, necessary to evolve some new methodology which reduces the error percentage. The report suggests using a variety of tools like photo-identification and monitoring, camera traps, radio-telemetry and DNA-based genetic studies in different landscape units. Another strong statement emanating from the task force is on the need for openness in the research output. It says, ‘… the most serious lacuna in the existing approach to managing information on tigers has been a lack openness and willingness to take everybody along. The inclusive, open approach that the Task Force advocates depends crucially on free access to all information for all people, except where very evident security concerns are involved. In modern times, this would be best ensured by posting all such information on the web, in English, as well in all Indian languages.’  The report has also suggested the need for a proper institutional mechanism for carrying out scientific research in these areas.

KEY SUGGESTIONS

Other key recommendations of the tiger task force are: i) reorganise the union ministry of environment and forests to create two separate departments: that of environment and that of forests and wildlife ii) revitalise the national board for wildlife. The prime minister could be requested to chair the steering committee of the project tiger for the coming few years in order to provide due political weight to the conservation of tiger in the country. According to media reports, the prime minister has agreed to do so iii) the wildlife crime bureau must be set up immediately iv) the project tiger should report annually to the parliament, etc.

However, one of the weaknesses of the report lies in its strength, i.e. it seeks to bring in the paradigm shift in the tiger conservation strategy by involving people in the conservation efforts, but fails to suggest concrete measures to achieve it. This is not to say that the report has not suggested measures towards this end. On the one hand, the report is precise in terms of what is to be done to make science, research, institutions, and tourism industries synergistic to the cause of tiger protection and conservation in the country. It remains broad and open-ended when it deals with the innovation in the conservation strategy. The effort, here, is to shift the onus on the park authorities. Similar is the problem in case of relocation agenda. Given the dubious inclination of the Indian bureaucracy, it (the people’s conservation plan) can well be interpreted in just the opposite ways. Since a new conservation strategy is being suggested it becomes imperative upon the Task Force to suggest the precise outline in order to make it fool proof and also to prevent the inert bureaucracy from circumventing it.

It must be said that the report of the Task force is a step forward in the right direction. What was long overdue has finally been addressed in our country. The report has generated immense controversy with traditional conservationists refusing to accept the basic tenet of the report that people and wild life can live in harmony provided due efforts are made in this regard. They have not learnt the lessons. Their science is devoid of societal concerns. For 30 long years, a systematic effort was made to conserve tigers. But their numbers started declining within one and half decade of the start of the Project Tiger. In the mean time the lives of people, who shared tiger’s habitat, became more miserable. Those who benefitted from the Project Tiger were the traditional conservationists, wild life photographers and hoteliers. It is high time that the local people and tribal populations must be given their due rights and then tigers will also be protected.

Tiger Reserves of India

Tiger Population over the years