When we think of tigers in India, two questions come to mind. How
does India ––a densely populated nation with a depleted forest cover
support half the world’s tigers today? And what does the future hold for
the species?
The persistence of tigers in India’s human dominated
landscapes is linked to the establishment of Project Tiger over four
decades ago and the subsequent creation of over 50 tiger reserves.
However,
it would be naïve to assume that protected areas alone have saved
tigers, or that they will, in themselves, ensure the species’ survival.
The large cats’ abrupt disappearance from prominent reserves like
Sariska in Rajasthan and Panna in Madhya Pradesh, and the documentation
of fewer than five tigers in Achanakmar in Chhattisgarh and Buxa in
Bengal are well known.
There are many factors that determine whether
Protected Areas (PAs) have positive conservation outcomes- habitat
connectivity, park management regimens and human acceptance of living
alongside tigers, risks and costs notwithstanding.
The
willingness of communities to accommodate tigers is shaped by the degree
to which communities are included in environmental governance and
natural resource management. Tiger Reserves in India largely censure
access and rights of local communities, resulting in the real or
perceived alienation of communities from forests. Resulting attrition
between communities and forest administrators can ultimately undermine
tiger conservation.
However, several Tiger Reserves like Periyar and
Parambikulam in Kerala have made tangible headway towards inclusive
conservation.
Tiger populations have also persisted in India
because the species is generally resilient and adaptable and can breed
quickly given adequate prey and secure habitats.
As conservation
biologists, we are becoming aware of the presence of breeding
populations in areas beyond extant boundaries of PAs, including areas
with extensive timber harvest practices or high human use, like Pilibhit
in Uttar Pradesh, Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu and 24 Parganas in
Bengal.
Thus, to hedge on the species’ bet against extinction, it is
important to disburse conservation resources over large landscapes that
could comprise a mosaic of protected areas, reserve forests,
agricultural tracts and settlements. Such a strategy is well aligned and
allows for dispersal and immigration of wide-ranging mammals.
However,
the ability of tigers to persist in human dominated landscapes has sharp
limits. If humans and cattle overrun tiger habitats, the species’
populations may be restricted to small and isolated patches or in larger
tracts that lack effective protection.
Importantly, the tiger’s
persistence in modern India’s human dominated landscapes has been made
possible by the acceptance of many millions of people living adjacent to
tiger habitats. Tolerance for tigers is woven into India’s cultural
fabric, as has been exemplified in the Terai and in Central India, where
large tiger populations exist near habitations, where the felines prey
on livestock, and occasionally claim human lives.
While it is
clear that the species has ultimately survived in regions where people
have willed it to live and co-existed with tigers, it would be imprudent
to over-simplify human tolerance, or that such attitudes are
ubiquitous. Regular news stories about big cats being poisoned,
bludgeoned, snared and electrocuted in various parts of the country
serve as reminders of these limits of tolerance.
What is then the future of tigers in India?
Poaching
remains the greatest and most immediate threat to wild tigers today. In
India, reported tiger deaths related to poaching reached an all time
high in 2016. Worryingly, these reported figures only represent a
fraction of actual mortality.
The systemic overhaul of protection
measures in India has been slow and many areas still remain
understaffed. Growing human populations, expanding settlements, and the
proliferation infrastructure networks resulting in smaller habitats
further challenge their future. Projections of sea-level rise indicate
that the future of tigers in the Sunderbans also remain uncertain .
Though
the challenges are many and complex, we remain optimistic. Tigers will
likely persist in large, connected landscapes where the big cats can
move freely and safely between habitat patches, such as those in the Terai and Western Ghats.
However, with rapidly expanding linear
infrastructure these and other landscapes continue to be carved up into
ever-smaller fragments. If critical corridors are lost, the future
occurrence within habitat fragments may increasingly require the
species’ active translocation from one area to another.
This will
require further advancing of our capacity to undertake complex tiger
translocations and developing systems to monitor tigers and ensure their
protection. Some important steps have been taken towards these ends.
A
large number of frontline-forest department staff are being trained in
technology-aided law enforcement and monitoring, and are better equipped
to curb poaching than they were a decade ago. This month, India became
the third country to have a tiger habitat site (Landsdowne Forest
Division in Uttarakhand) accredited under the Global Conservation
Assured Tiger Standards scheme.
While we persevere in our efforts
to ensure the survival of this majestic species, it is hard to envision
what their world and ours will look like. Will cultural ethos, that
today engender coexistence, remain intact and large numbers of humans
stoically continue to live in the shadow of fierce carnivores? Or will
we fence off our reserves, and harden boundaries between human spaces
and wilderness?
Is it conceivable that we will be able to engineer
landscapes, through prescient land use planning, that maintain
permeability and facilitate tiger dispersal while also developing
mechanisms to rapidly contain individuals that stray into settlements?
Time alone will bear witness to these questions.
Credits : The Tiger's World and Ours
By Pranav Chanchani
July 29, 2017
Hindustan Times
