Report of the Tiger Task Force - PRS

TIGER TASK FORCE REPORT JOINING THE DOTS ■●●●their fringes. The rights of these people in the‘enclaved’ villages were never settled, relocationoccurred sporadically and they lived an illegalexistence — trespassers in their own lands.Conservation imperatives ensured their rights tograze animals and to collect firewood and minorforest produce stood exterminated.Park authorities, in turn, invested in protectionand enforcement. All this meant increasedclashes between people and park protectors.Simultaneously, the poverty of the areas outsidethe parks exacerbated. The parks, in manycases, became isolated islands of protection andresources. The forests outside the reserves weredecimated. These areas, under the territorialwing of the forest department, had littleresources and received no planning impetus.The grazing pressure became acute, withlimited fodder in overgrazed village and forestlands. Also, a lack of investment in irrigationfacilities, ranging from small tanks towatersheds, meant agricultural productivitysuffered. All this has contributed to the generalpoverty and destitution of villagers livingaround parks.At the same time, many tiger reserves wereinfiltrated by insurgents and naxalites; manysuch reserves are now completely beyond thereach of forest and protected area managements.The rise in insurgency in these areas is widelyattributed to the growing alienation andmarginalisation of communities living in abjectpoverty in the country’s richest lands. During theNational Development Council meeting in 2005,the chief minister of Karnataka — who called fora change in the forest laws — said that theemerging naxalite problem in the Kudremukhnational park was directly related to thecompulsion to shift age-old tribal enclaves out ofthe forest.As a result of these factors, conflict has grown andcan be assessed as the biggest threat facing India’stigers and other wild species, indeed the future ofIndia’s conservation programme today. Acompilation of media reports on tiger reservesexposes this vulnerability clearly (see box: Humananimalconflict makes news).An assessment of threats faced by differenttiger reserves, made for the World Bank’secodevelopment programme, says that inmost reserves, the main pressure is fromconflicts with local communities as well as armedinsurgency. In Palamau tiger reserve, for instance,“one of the biggest threats is the presence ofextremists and varied armed gangs who virtually rulethe roost and make it extremely difficult for the forestdepartment to operate”. 17 People’s alienation fuelsthe growing threat of extremism and naxalism inthese areas.It is clear that this internal threat must becombated. It is also clear that unless we find ways ofmanaging the competing needs of conservation andpeople, India’s conservation programme willnot work.Project Tiger: an assessmentIt is now over 30 years since Project Tiger waslaunched. It is, therefore, an opportune time toevaluate its strengths and weaknesses so that policycan be designed to protect the magnificent tiger. Theassessment of the Tiger Task Force in this regard is asfollows:1. The programme, when initiated, had the highestpolitical commitment. It was carefully crafted sothat reserves for the tiger could be created andprotected. Its architects also put into place amanagement system to organise the work thatstates had to do, including setting up specialisedwildlife wings, and ensuring protection. But theproblem was that the commitment to the projectwas never made inclusive.2. Over time, interest waned at the Centre and theinstitutions for management lost direction. Theircontrol over activities in states declined with theloss in their own capacities. Managementsystems and scientific tools did not keep pacewith the challenges to protect a species inincreasingly complex situations.3. While state forest departments with limitedresources did as much as they could, politicalleaderships in states were not as committed orinvolved in the programme. In political circles,over time, interest gave way to anger against thedifferential treatment meted to tigers vis-a-viswhat were perceived to be more importantdevelopmental objectives such as mining andhydroelectric projects. The contribution of stategovernments was rarely acknowledged.4. At the same time, local people, who lived in theterritory of the tiger, were left out of the benefitsof the programme. They were made illegalsettlers in their own land and denied even theirbasic needs. These ignored people increasinglyturned against the tiger. Their contribution insharing the ecological space of the tiger wasnever recognised. They continued to lose theirlivestock, crops and lives to wild animals, butwere rarely properly compensated.5. There was no real interest group supporting thetiger. On the contrary, interests that were againstthe tiger — from illegal mining and buildingThe assessment 11