Snaring poachers and saving tigers

Snaring poachers and saving tigers
Protecting endangered tigers is a complex task that warrants a variety of policy interventions. The Centre's decision to set up a dedicated investigative task force consisting of officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Forest department, and other agencies is one such measure. A professional task force against poaching and wildlife crime that is sensitive to conservation imperatives will remove a major lacuna in the implementation of Project Tiger. Shocking levels of poaching have been recorded in the last decade and over 600 kills catalogued by non-governmental organisations such as the Wildlife Protection Society of India. As the only country with a significant number of tigers surviving in the wild, India has for long been the hunting ground for international poaching networks that trade in tiger skins, bones, and parts. Such groups are able to operate virtually unchallenged because enforcement of the Wildlife Protection Act is pathetic. Poachers have jumped bail and gone underground to resume illegal wildlife trade. The CBI has suggested to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that there is a need to revisit the Act to curtail bail options, remove provisions for remission and suspension of sentences, and set up exclusive courts to hear wildlife cases. A stronger law, however, can only be as good as the cooperation the CBI gets from State police forces — and the law enforcers get from society.
Scientists feel confident of achieving an increase in tiger populations because the species breeds fast in a protected environment. Much of this anticipated success will depend upon the response of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the custodian of the flora and fauna in the few available protected forests. This Ministry has been perceived to be unduly receptive to industrial investment proposals that damage the ecology of protected areas. The Cat Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (also known as the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) noted this worrying trend in the wake of the Sariska crisis. "In booming India, industrialisation rules; a senior official in the Ministry of Environment declared in a World Bank journal that environment legislation and processes are causing risks for investors and need reforming," observes the IUCN in an editorial on the future of the tiger. What is needed is reform that aids and strengthens conservation. The Prime Minister, who leads the national rescue effort, must eliminate policy conflicts that affect the health of forests. The poaching of tigers and their prey is widely acknowledged to be a serious threat and the new investigative task force and similar agencies can make some gains in this area. Yet, for Project Tiger to succeed, a congenial environmental policy is an imperative. India needs to act with a clear understanding that the tiger has a future only if habitat is preserved, conservation science improved, and field protection within forests strengthened.
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