Vidarbha, with its three tiger reserves, 9 wildlife sanctuaries and
national parks, dominates the Central India landscape and is unique with
forests lying outside the boundaries of the protected areas, providing
habitats for a large population of tigers. It is spread over several
thousand square kms extending from the northern border with Chhattisgarh and MP to the southern hems of Chandrapur and Gadchiroli along the Pranhita and Godavari rivers in Andhra Pradesh.
During 2005 to 2011 in Chandrapur district alone, there were 103 cases of tiger attacks, including 65 human deaths. A high number of tigers
were suspected to be killed by poachers using traps, poisoning or
electrocution. A common fact running through all these episodes is that
almost all these incidences were outside the Tadoba Andhari Tiger
Reserve (TATR).
It would be a daunting task to protect these
tigers given the environment in which they have managed to survive.
Apart from the immediate contiguous forests of Tadoba as it is popularly
known as, these tigers are living in fragmented corridors and human
dominated landscapes. But the fact that tigers are still breeding is a
clear indication that to a significant extent these forests still retain
their ecological identity.
Hence, given such odds, how does one go about protecting these tigers?
The fact remains that there is hardly any policy in place that is
concerned with wildlife outside the protected areas, and these are the
thousands of square kilometres and not just the immediate fringes of the
reserves now recognized as 'buffer zones'. The thinking and attitude
among the lawmakers as well as the wildlife research fraternity are that
focusing management efforts and resources on the protected areas, the
repositories of the vital 'gene pools', is what really matters. The
other ('lesser') tigers form the 'sink' populations which are not likely
to survive in the long run, and, hence are dispensable.
With
declaration of buffer zones, the conservation efforts will now extend to
the tigers of the fringe forests, but the populations away from the
notified buffer zones are still left in the lurch. But, in the present
scenario with the diminishing numbers of tigers, it's difficult to agree
with this line of thought.
Firstly, are these tigers living in the forests outside the protected areas really different from the tigers within? Tiger
do not recognize boundaries - their home ranges cover protected and
unprotected areas. Then it makes little sense if the same individual
enjoys protection when it is within and is left to fend for itself as a
'lesser tiger' the moment he steps beyond the boundary. Are we hamstrung
by a system which allows protection only within the demarcated area or
should we have a system that is tailored to protecting wildlife over its
entire range? There have been occasions when officers concerned have
heaved a sigh of relief because the dead tiger lay a few metres beyond
their area of command.
Secondly, are these tigers really isolated from the main populations? Many
of the old corridors still survive in good forest patches connected by
degraded areas along farms and villages. As the results of the recent
telemetry done by Dr Vidya Athreya show, tigers are capable of
travelling across such landscapes. Besides, there are no studies done as
yet to establish if these tigers are genetically isolated from their
cousins in the core areas.
Thirdly, to a wildlife manger, every tiger matters, wherever and however it may exist. This is also the mandate given to him by the Wildlife Act, and what the citizens expect him to do.
Poaching of tigers in this landscape areas has brought Tadoba in focus.
There is little realization that these tigers may not have been poached
within the tiger reserve, but these unfortunate individuals were having
a home range with their biological and territorial imperatives
requiring them to shunt between the protected and non protected areas.
Thus they are very much a part of the gene pool that everyone is
concerned about.
The buffer, the adjoining corridors and the
other peripheral forests still do not have a wildlife management plan
and hence there is no protection strategy in place. Therefore these
'lesser' tigers may soon be on the verge of disappearance unless some
urgent pre-emptive action is taken to save them. The argument that
disappearance of these tigers will have no effect on the core tiger gene
pool is thus not a valid one.
I believe that no strategy or
programme to protect and conserve tigers will prove to be effective if
it only focuses on the reserves and their immediate fringes,
particularly for Vidarbha where a very substantial part of the tiger
population is surviving and breeding outside. There is an urgent need to
encompass these 'lesser' tigers within an effective management system
and to integrate them in the current policy and programmes of wildlife
management.
Today the major constraint of protecting these
tigers outside is the poor knowledge and capacity of the ground staff
when it comes to managing wildlife.
To begin with, all such
Beats where the tiger's presence is marked should be identified as
sensitive. The population estimation data from the census exercises,
besides giving an estimate of the tiger population, should also identify
the spatial distribution of the tigers right down to the Beats followed
by a system of monitoring tiger movements at the beat level. This will
primarily require capacity building among the Beat guards manning these
sensitive areas. The random camera trapping being done by these guards
has other than empowering them with a tool been just a gamut of pictures
of tigers and cubs which now needs to be collated, analysed to function
as a data base for referencing.
At the height of the incidences
of tiger attacks in the Chandrapur district during 2008, the forest
department, with the help of Tiger Research and Conservation Trust
had started the Corridor Conservation Program of capacity building of
the ground staff, focusing on identifying signs of the tiger's presence
and mapping it using the Global Positioning System (GPS). It also
included communicating alerts of a tiger's presence to the villagers and
sensitizing these locals about their code of conduct.
Such
capacity building along with that for anti poaching activities will need
to continue along with a clearly stated policy that in these sensitive
Beats wildlife protection will take precedence over forestry
works like plantations, timber, bamboo or tendu extraction. All water
holes in each such Beat need to be shown in the Beat map, so also
location of power lines, which need to be rigidly monitored for tapping.
Once these carnivore-present Beats, mostly contiguous with their rounds
and ranges-tagged 'sensitive' are identified, senior field officers and
above should be also made accountable for overseeing monitoring by the
Beat guard. The mantra would be to be aware of the tiger's presence in
the Beat and thus pre-empt its possible attack on men and cattle and to
checkmate the poachers.
Tourism in these areas will serve as
alternative destinations for sighting tigers. With certain basic ground
rules in place, tourists may be allowed to sit on a machaan or drive
with spot lights. Cattle kills can be optimized as the monetary returns
to locals from tourists will eliminate the tendency of the villagers to
remove the cattle carcass (they often poison it too). The most obvious
fall out would be an incentive to keep a strict watch on these tigers by
a host of stake holders.
TRACT,
with the staff of the Moharli range in Tadoba, had monitored the
movements of a tigress with cubs outside the reserve around the Erai
reservoir for more than 16 months. Daily monitoring of indirect signs or
direct sightings, awareness among the local communities resulted in the
tigress family of five being seen by hundreds of tourists on the road
leading to the Moharli gate, till the time the cubs separated from their
mother.
This experience eloquently brought out the fact that
peripheral forests having a fairly good population of wild prey can
support a family of tigers, with daily monitoring ensuring that there
were no conflicts and poaching. No collaring or handling of the tigers
was required. The simple prescription is basic foot patrolling and
monitoring of threats by involving the local NGO, village forest protection committees, helped by trained Beat Guards.
The question remains: Is the Maharashtra forest department prepared to
accept and face the biggest challenge of wildlife management of the
moment - to protect the tigers once they are outside the protected
areas? These 'lesser' tigers are now on a short fuse, as they try to win
in the game of survival and breeding under increasingly adverse
conditions. And if we lose them, we may end up losing the so called
protected ones too. They are one and the same.
(The writer
is the founder trustee and secretary of the Tiger Research and
Foundation Trust, an organization involved in the conservation of the
tiger and its habitat, since 2001)
