Report of the Tiger Task Force - PRS

TIGER TASK FORCE REPORT JOINING THE DOTS ■3.4 Innovative protection agendaThere are several nomadic and other communities,skilled in hunting, whose services are being usedby poachers across the country to kill animalsfor a price. The traditional livelihoods of thesecommunities used to revolve around hunting andgathering; they always subsisted in close relationswith forests. But over the years, they have beenvictimised and marginalised and, today, are forced tolive in absolute poverty at the fringes of forests. Thequestion, therefore is how, if at all, the services ofthese traditional hunters and trackers can be used —not against, but for the tigers.Unfortunately, we have done little to understandthe peculiar needs of these communities. Besideshunting, they are skilled in extracting minor forestproduce. Their practices are sustainable. As theinterest in protection has grown, it is theselivelihoods that have faced a clampdown. Theirpoverty today pushes them towards unlawfulactivities, which are unsustainable and destructive.Field officers across the country have told the TigerTask Force that without the rehabilitation of thesecommunities, protecting wildlife will be difficult.The Task Force has studied some of the caseswhere the government, researchers or other agencieshave experimented with programmes to create forestbasedlivelihoods for these groups. These are merelyrepresentative of the possibilities or potential thatexist in this sphere. These efforts do show thatwherever people have put in an effort and thoughtthrough the process — in India or elsewhere — it hasbeen possible to devise a working plan for thesedestitute tribes.The BawariaThe Bawaria are a traditional nomadic hunting tribethat have been accused of being party to the poachingin Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan. Five members ofthe tribe were arrested during investigations after therecent crisis.According to the 1981 census, this community isspread across four states in 32 districts. Rajasthan,according to the same census, had 31,903 Bawaria.This community is famed for its ability to huntand track animals. The Bawaria were earlier used byroyal hunting parties to track animals during shikars(hunts). A socio-economic study by researcher BaharDutt for Muktidhara, a Rajasthan-based NGO, lists 22species the Bawaria are known to hunt. 1 Theseinclude large predators like the tiger, leopard, hyenaand the jackal. They are also regular hunters ofungulate species like the spotted deer and thesambar as well as smaller animals like the mongoose,Indian hare, jungle cats and numerous bird species.Hunts for smaller animals are more regular.The most common species the Bawaria hunt isthe sambar, followed by the peacock and theparakeet. Dutt suggests hunting of ungulates can beeither for personal consumption, or for sale as meat,antlers or hide to local markets.The community uses various tools like snaresand traps for the animals and has devised trapsingeniously for the purpose. Its recent use of smallexplosive devices and guns has also been recorded.Changing occupational profileBut the occupational profile of the people haschanged with time. According to the 2003 surveydone by Dutt earlier, more than 70 per cent of thetribe members had hunting as their main profession.In the current generation, 80 per cent of the Bawariain Alwar district have taken to protecting agriculturalfields against crop depredation by animals like thenilgai (blue bull). Their skills at hunting animalsare being brought to use informally by othercommunities living in the vicinity of forests. But asthis utilisation continues at an informal level andthere is no official recognition of their role as aprotector, the Bawaria merely get — in return fortheir efforts — some foodgrains and a piece of land tobuild a temporary shelter on the farmers’ fields.Unlike in earlier times when hunting may havebeen their major occupation, today they resort tohunting in times of distress. The study shows that onan average, more than 70 per cent of the Bawariafamilies interviewed faced food shortage crises and21 per cent of the families had taken to hunting totide over this crisis.Their insecurity also arises from the fact thatthough they are entitled to land, very few haveactually been able to get it from the government.Coupled with the fact that the traditional campingland — the commons — has slowly disappeared fromRajasthan, the Bawaria are left with little option but todepend upon landholders to provide them space fortemporary shelters, which are made out of plasticsheets and hay. In a public hearing held in Delhi in2003, some Bawaria families recorded their pendingapplications for land rights with the government.With no tenure over land and their main skill beingtermed ‘illegal’ under the wildlife laws of the country,the Bawaria have tried to evolve a livelihood strategyto provide a degree of sustenance for themselves.The way ahead 63