Tiger deaths: Under-staffing, poor intelligence main reasons

New Delhi: Lack of funds and quality staff, sloppy intelligence, poorly-armed protection force and delay in relocating villagers from tiger habitats were among the key reasons for big cat deaths, a Parliamentary panel has said.

The committee on 'conservation and protection of tigers' flayed the National TigerConservation Authority for its failure to ensure sufficient funds and staff to check the declining big cat population.

Asking it to plug the gaps, the panel, which tabled its report in Parliament today, has also suggested that the NTCA -- entrusted with the task of implementing Project Tiger in the country -- should speed up village relocation on priority basis to save the animals.

"The implementation of the Project Tiger under NTCA was severely hampered by under-staffing at the level of sanctuaries and the personnel actually employed were also found to be over-aged, under-trained and under-equipped in many cases," said the panel headed by BJP MP Gopinath Munde.

Inadequate arms and ammunition, lack of strike force, poor intelligence gathering and inadequate patrolling camps were some of the other reasons for tiger deaths, it said. "As a result, poaching of tigers continued and touched an annual level of 22 over a period of six years," it said.

Initiated in 1972, Project Tiger has been taking several steps to ensure tiger conservation and protection. The NTCA is an autonomous body under the Environment Ministry.

The panel also took serious exception to fact that the relocation of families in tiger reserves was going on at a snail's pace and "at this rate it will take more than a decade to relocate all the families from the core/buffer area."

Attributing the delay to funds shortage, it noted that "Against the requirement of Rs 11,000 crore to relocate 64,951 families living within the tiger reserves, the allocation in the Tenth Five Year Plan was a meagre Rs 10.50 crore."

In its reply, the Environment Ministry told the panel that since inception of Project Tiger till June 2005, a total of 80 villages (2904 families) have been relocated.

"During the Tenth Plan, under the enhanced package (Rs 10 lakh to each family) Rs 236.79 crore was provided to states for 7782 families' relocation." Pointing out that mitigation of human interference was important for tiger survival, the panel suggested that the Environment Ministry should undertake a special donor-driven project and "link this to the benefits which will accrue to the community by not cutting trees."

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Tiger Reserve surrounded by coal mines

The 625 square kilometre protected forest in Chandrapur is home to over fifty tigers, a sanctuary shattered by the hostile coal mines that surround it on at least two sides.

Recently the Prime Minster wrote to Maharashtra asking it to notify crucial buffer zones around tiger parks because in the Tadoba Reserve there is a need for more space.

It was in this crucial tiger corridor that the Adani coal mine was suppose to come up. The permission was denied by the Union Environment Minister but it continues to raise an important question: Why is the Maharashtra state government continuing to drag its feet for over two years on an important piece of legislation, something that will finally notify these buffer zones.

Buffer zones are specially notified areas around parks or reserve forests that are meant to divide the park from areas of human pressure. This division is of vital importance as by law any activity like mining or others that destroy the habitat have to be kept at least ten kilometres from the buffer zone which helps protect the parks habitat.

Without this notification the Tadoba buffer zone is not yet legally out of bounds for mines and industries.

While mining activity is Tadoba's biggest problem, over the last one year, the man-animal conflict has also escalated particularly in the eastern side of the reserve with 14 people and 4 tigers dead.

President, Tiger Research and Conservation Trust, Harshawardhan Dhanwatey says, "It has 60 odd villages and 20-25 years ago, the population was not more than 100/80 people. Today the population has gone up by three times. The impact of these people on Tadoba is quite a bit. Grazing is a big problem here because there is a lot of cattle that these villages own and it is contributing to the degradation of forest."

All this increase the possibility of encounters.

"Unfortunately the status of the forest staff is not up to the mark. At present we have 5 RFO postings out of which 3 are vacant and we want to increase post of RFO, forest guards. Only 34 beats are there so average area of beat is very large. Almost, a beat guard has to protect an average area of 1848 hectares which is certainly a big area to protect," says Sanjay Thakre, Field Director, Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

It's a miracle that the tiger population has survived these man-made traps when it desperately needs man-made ecological fillip to thrive and grow.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/tiger-reserve-surrounded-by-coal-mines-22109.php