Report of the Tiger Task Force - PRS

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TIGER TASK FORCE REPORT JOINING THE DOTS ■RecommendationsIt is clear that much more needs to be done to invest in the capacity and facilitiesprovided for protection and management of tiger reserves. But it is equally clear that thereare no single answers to the problems of the reserves. The Task Force believes that a singleor simple contention that the answer to tiger protection is to invest more resources,infrastructure or personnel for protection and management, is clearly not borne out by thefacts.1. The reserves that have received the most financial investment have not necessarilyfared as the best managed or protected reserves in the country. Funds or infrastructure isnot the only determinant for success.In fact, these resources can be counter-productive if the strategy for management isnot well considered and operationalised. For instance, Sariska and Ranthambhore, bothin Rajasthan, where the tiger has been reported to be under severe threat of extinction,have received the heaviest investments for developing protection infrastructure. It isimportant to address this issue. India, being a poor country with many competingpriorities, funds will always be scarce here for any given activity. The fact that the heavyinvestments made in these reserves have not yielded fruits needs to be highlighted, so thatstrategies that are indeed effective can be adopted.Recommendation: Each reserve must have a specific and detailed strategy for protection.The independent monitoring of the reserve must include an assessment of theenforcement mechanisms in place and the patrolling efforts of field staff, so that policyinterventions can be designed.The Task Force does not recommend the need for armed forces as the mostappropriate for protection. In fact, it finds that intervention of armed personnel inprotection of reserves is not necessarily the most appropriate response. Project Tiger hasprovisions for providing central funding support to deploy armed personnel from centralreserve police and state police. But this experience, in many cases, has not been usefulbecause of the unfamiliar terrain and circumstances.2. However, there are areas that have unique problems that need urgent and carefulreview. These are:i. The reserves in the northeastern part of the country, which are inaccessible andoccupy vast areas: Manas, 2,840 sq km; Nameri, 1,206 sq km; and Namdapha, 1,985 sqkm. Except for Manas, which is flat and largely accessible, the terrain in the otherreserves is extremely inhospitable for outsiders. The question is: what kind ofprotection strategy should be applied in these areas? The convention — more guardsper sq km — will simply not work here.ii. The reserves in the naxalite-hit areas, which are simply out of bounds for the forestprotection forces. These are also large — Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam is the largestreserve in the country with an area of 3,568 sq km. Indravati sprawls over 2,799 sq km,and Palamau and Valmiki over 800 sq km each. Again, sanctioning more staff will notwork here, because they simply cannot be deployed. At present, these are reserveswith the highest vacancies in the field staff. In these reserves, what is needed is astrategy that involves the armed protection forces and makes allies of the local people.The alienation of the people because of the forest policy breeds support for naxalism;wildlife is part of this problem.Recommendation: There should be a clear strategy for protection in the northeasternreserves, where local people will be the only ones capable of traversing and protecting theThe way ahead 47
■ JOINING THE DOTS TIGER TASK FORCE REPORTarea. There should also be a strategy for the reserves controlled by naxalites, where armedintervention by the police might be the only option. In other cases, armed protection is notnecessarily the solution. The answer will be in the deployment and internal managementto make the most effective use of existing resources and infrastructure for protection.3. There is no indicator by which it can be determined that the number of staff in anyreserve is adequate for its protection and management. In a country as vast as India, thearea that is patrolled by each staff, even in the best of circumstances — as in Buxa tigerreserve — is 3 sq km, or 300 hectares. The average in the country is as high as 15.35 sq km,particularly because of the vastness of the northeast region and its inaccessibility. Evenafter removing these ‘extremes’, each guard is required to patrol 13.54 sq km (1,300hectares).Again, answers to this cannot lie in simply increasing numbers of the protection andpatrolling force. What is really needed is a careful assessment of the demand and theadequacy of the staff as compared to the area, the ecological region and the nature of thethreat. For instance, in Kanha, one of the best managed tiger reserves, guards patrol 12.16sq km on an average. In Ranthambhore, which is now known to have lost a large numberof its tigers, guards patrol 9.88 sq km on an average.The issue that needs to be considered carefully is why does patrolling work in Kanha,which has as per the last count protected its tigers, and not in Ranthambhore? Clearly, thethreat of poaching remains in both the reserves. In both, the number of people who liveinside and outside the boundaries are proportionally equal. But there could be othercontributing factors, such as the hostility of local people to the reserves, the pressure ofgrazing because of lack of investment in neighbouring areas and mismanagement.Recommendation: Further recruitment of staff — foresters as well as guards — must bereserved, as far as possible, for local villagers. The villagers located within the reserve(who are not being relocated) or the villagers who have been relocated outside the reservemust get preferential jobs in the reserves. This will provide local people with a positivestake in the protection of reserves. There should be direct recruitment and trainingprovided for the recruits.The criterion for recruitment should be amended so that it relaxes the formaleducational qualifications needed for this position and instead values skills in junglecraft. In addition, there should be provision for in-service training for locally recruitedstaff.4. The ability and capacity of the staff is an important consideration. As far as this isconcerned, most reserves are in the same boat. The average age in the country for guardsis 42 years, for foresters, 46 years and for rangers, 47 years. But there are cases of concern— in Palamau the average age of guards is 53 and in Simlipal it is 49 years. The problemhere is that states are cash-strapped and are downsizing staff. In the most recent cases ofrecruitment, the effort has been to re-deploy persons from other services, which leads toeven more problems, or to hire temporary staff. It is not possible to look at this issue inisolation and must be considered carefully in the light of the situation prevailing acrossthe country and solutions found accordingly.As far as training for foresters and guards is concerned, the situation is far fromsatisfactory in most reserves. The situation is unusual only in Corbett, and merits amention: all the guards and foresters have undergone formal training there. Kanha is next,where 53 of the 71 posted foresters are trained. But the capacity of guards has not beenbuilt in Kanha, with only six trained guards out of a total 159.These are two of the top reserves in the country. In other words, the training of staff isclearly critical for management.48 The way ahead
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Page 4 and 5: ContentsIntroductionExecutive summa
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04Action plan for changeKey recomme
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05References
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