Report of the Tiger Task Force - PRS

■ JOINING THE DOTS TIGER TASK FORCE REPORT3.7 The relocation agendaWildlife conservationists say it is necessary to createinviolate spaces for the tiger. They state that Indiamust be prepared to set aside this land — 37,761 sqkm of tiger reserves, which, they say, is barely 1 percent of the country’s land area — for this flagshipspecies to breed and roam in.This is clearly not unreasonable. After all, tigerreserves have been designated with this distinctpurpose in mind. When they were created in the1970s, the international agency assisting thegovernment had said that it was necessary for thetiger “to have large areas of at least 2,000 sq km withsimilar contiguous areas so that a viable populationof about 300 tigers in each area could bemaintained”. The task force chaired by Karan Singhthen went on to investigate the feasibility of thisproposal, but found that it could not locate manyareas as large as 2,000 sq km, which could be‘reserved’ for tiger conservation. It, therefore,decided to adopt an approach in which smallerreserves would be created as model parks to preservethe tiger, while much more would be done to buildpublic opinion in favour of wildlife preservation andso secure larger areas for protection. 1Even when the first eight tiger reserves wereselected in different ecological systems, the taskforce noted that each reserve had existing humanpressure — of grazing, resource use and commercialfelling. It then suggested a management plan thatwould involve restricting and minimising humanactivities within the reserves. The core of the reservewould be designated a national park, with no humanactivity, while the buffer area could sustain people.The plan was that people would be relocatedfrom the core areas of the tiger reserves, while theywould continue to co-exist in the buffer areas. Butthe problem has been that while Project Tiger isbased on a management plan, using concepts of coreand buffer, the law does not have this provision.While the concept of core-buffer is deployed foradministrative purposes of the reserve, the lawprovides for something else: two main categories ofprotected reserves — national parks and sanctuaries— and two categories of protected forests — reserveforests and protected forests.The tiger reserves in the country are a patchworkof these existing legal land uses. In many cases,where there were a large number of settlements,adjustments were made to exclude these areas fromthe core and to keep the area under the category ofeither a ‘sanctuary’ or a ‘reserve forest’. In fact, incertain cases, the core area of the tiger reserve doesnot have the legal protection a forested space getswhen it receives ‘national park’ status. It remains asanctuary, but its administrators have to manage it asa completely protected zone.The problem is that while there is an emphasison removing the biotic pressure that people bring tothe tiger’s habitat in most cases, there is littleempirical evidence of the nature of this impact andwhat can be done to manage or mitigate it, before theoption of relocation is considered. What isinteresting is that the architects of Project Tiger hadnoted, even then, that the “information on the effectsof villages and their occupants on surrounding areasis generally lacking”. In addition, it had pointed outthat the forest department considers that “poachingby villagers in the reserves is spasmodic and its effectis negligible. Villagers are undoubtedly a fire hazard,but they are also available to assist in extinguishingserious fires”.But as villagers would impact the habitat overtime, that task force said it was desirable that smallpockets of forest villages should be shifted. In casethis was not possible, then, at the very least, cattlethat are a menace to forests should be diverted toalternative sites. In case people were angry becausetheir cattle were killed by tigers and were resortingto retaliatory poisoning, the task force said thatcompensation should be paid urgently.Since then, more reserves have been created. Theprinciple followed is the same: absolute protectionfor the core and human activity geared towardsconservation in the buffer.But unfortunately, 30 years hence, this picture isfar from perfect. In fact, matters have become muchworse. People continue to live in the core as well asthe buffer areas of the reserves. There has beeninadequate work done to relocate settlements and, inthe meantime, poverty and destitution has drivenmore people into the reserves. Authorities maintainthat according to the plan, these people are notallowed to use forest resources, first in the core andnow even in the buffer areas. People live there, sothey do use the resources; but this use is illegal. Theauthorities say that people should not be living in thereserves, as per the management plan for the reserve,which has demarcated areas as core and buffer, sothere is no question of providing developmentassistance or even compensation for cattle kills.There is escalating and deadly tension between thepeople and the park because of all this. At the end ofit, the tiger and the people are both losing.The issue, then, is to review what has been done88 The way ahead