Can we democratize tiger conservation in India

Can we democratize tiger conservation in India

Subject: Environment

Section: Species in news

Context: Scientists were happy Project Tiger was able to hold on to tiger populations. The 2023 preliminary report finds that this hold is slipping.

More on the News:

The tiger number released and the minimum estimate based on the tigers photographed during the survey. The final estimates will come in the next few months; authorities have indicated a 6% annual growth rate, so the expected number would be approximately 25-30% above the previous 2018-2019 estimate of 2,967 tigers.

Many scientists, while not impressed by the figures, were happy that Project Tiger was able to hold on to tiger populations in most of the geographical regions where they existed at its inception.

However, in the 2023 preliminary report, for the first time, finds that this hold is slipping away. Now losing tigers from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and the Eastern ghats and from the Northeastern forests. With it, lose genetic diversity unique to these geographical regions, dashing hopes of maintaining long-term population viability and natural recovery.

Challenges in Tiger Conservation Approach:

• Reintroduction of Tigers: A tool that is increasingly being used is to reintroduce tigers from central Indian forests, where the populations are thriving, as was done for the Panna and the Sariska Tiger Reserves. However, if this is done too often, re-introduction will homogenise tiger genetic structure across the country.
• Absence of proper scientific oversight: therefore, focus stayed on boosting tiger numbers rather than their habitat and concomitant species.
• Manipulating ecosystems: the most common interventions were to manipulate ecosystems so that they could support high densities of the tiger’s principal prey species. In most cases, this involved improving habitat for cheetal, a mixed feeder that thrives in the “ecotone” between forests and grasslands.
  • For example, in the Kanha Tiger Reserve, the explosion in the cheetal population resulted in the habitat becoming unsuitable for the endangered hard ground barasingha, which depends on tall grass. Managers then had to create exclosures free of cheetal so that the barasingha could reproduce, and their numbers recover.
• Excessive provisioning of water: during the dry season tends to reduce natural, climate driven variations in populations of wildlife. This is likely to have unknown and unintended consequences for these habitats in the long-term.
• Policy issues:
  • Conservation in India depends entirely on a network of Protected Areas (PAs). This is an exclusive conservation model and suffers from a “ sarkaar” complex.
  • WLPA is a restrictive law. It describes in great detail what you can’t do. However, the law and associated policies have done very little to enable conservation.
  • There is no policy framework and incentive for ordinary citizens to aid in conservation – be it for tigers or for any other species. As a result, conservation has not reached beyond these PAs.

Suggestions:

• Have frameworks that allow local communities, citizens, scientists, non-governmental organisations, and businesses to participate meaningfully in conservation.
  • For example, large tracts of forest land are “Reserved Forests” under the jurisdiction of the “territorial” wing of State Forest Departments. Such areas can be co-managed with an approach that is inclusive and provides economic benefits for local communities.
• Vision document that examines these figures critically and provides a way forward for the next 20 years.
• In many landscapes, degraded agricultural lands adjoining these forest areas can be restored to enhance connectivity between Protected Areas.