The WWF announced today that the wild tiger population has now fallen as low as 3,200, down from an estimated 100,000 in 1900.

The big cat, which is native to southern and eastern Asia, could soon become extinct unless urgent action is taken to prevent hunting and loss of habitat, the charity’s experts warned.

The WWF is calling on governments in countries where tigers are still found – including China, India and Bangladesh – to fulfil their commitment to double tiger numbers by 2022.

It has also urged Britons to put pressure on “tiger nations” by signing a new online petition saying they do not want to live in a world without the animals.

Diane Walkington, head of species at WWF-UK, said: "Without joined-up, global action right now, we are in serious danger of losing the species forever in many parts of Asia.

She went on: "If we lose the tiger, not only do we lose one of the world's top predators, we will lose so much more.

"By safeguarding their habitats, we will protect hundreds of other species in the process."

The protection campaign has been launched to coincide with Year of the Tiger in Chinese calendar, which falls in both 2010 and 2022.

Representatives from 13 countries which are home to wild tigers – a list which also includes Nepa, Russia and Thailand - are to meet in Bali next week to discuss plans to boost numbers.

The world’s first global summit on tigers will be held in St Petersburg in September.

Mrs Walkington added: "There has never before been this level of momentum for action on tigers and governments must take advantage of it."

Experts said that the natural resilience and prodigious fertility of tigers gave hope that concerted conservation would see populations recover.

Dr Bivash Pandav, who works with tigers for the WWF in Nepal said: "As soon as you provide protection and enough undisturbed habitat, they breed immediately and within three or four years their numbers bounce back."

Tiger populations once stretched across swathes of Asia, with pockets as far west as Turkey and Iran.

But their thick fur and the supposed medical benefits of their bones have made them prime target for poachers, and the destruction of their habitats – particularly forests – has further suppressed numbers.

Earlier this year a study showed that there were fewer than 50 wild tigers left in China.

Forest in a rat trap

Trapped from all sides by expanding towns, heavy traffic highways and railway tracks, mining and poaching, can the precious little strip of Rajaji National Park save its tigers?
Akash Bisht Chilla/Rishikesh

As the tussle between the Union ministries of environment and surface transport intensifies over environmental clearances for 17 highways across tiger reserves in the country, two choked highways - NH-58 and NH-72 - are piercing through the heart of the ecological hot spot, Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand. It is effectively killing the twin hopes of repopulating tigers in the entire Shivalik Forest Region, while maintaining a healthy core population at the Jim Corbett National Park. 

NH-58 connects Haridwar to Delhi, while NH-72 (A) connects Haridwar to Dehradun. Both witness heavy traffic and vehicular movement every day. Increasing tourism and developmental activities in recent years have led to massive increase of vehicles plying on these highways. "They bifurcate the park and obstruct the passage of animals from one forest division to another. This traffic is like a cancer which is spreading and eating into the park's vital organs," says SS Rasaily, Project Director, Rajaji National Park. 

In 2007, park authorities conducted a survey to calculate the number of vehicles that pass through the two highways everyday. The results were shocking: 29,000 vehicles ply on these highways on a daily basis and as many as 600 from 1:30am to 2:30am. According to the National Highways Authority of India, these two highways witness a vehicular traffic growth of nearly 7 per cent each year. Rasaily pegs the current numbers at close to 50,000. 

This virtual wall of fast moving vehicles deters the animals from passing through their natural habitat or even going to the nearby rivers to quench their thirst. Additionally, 40 trains plying on the same route during early mornings and late evenings - peak time for animals to move around the forests - are inflicting daily and long-term damage on their free movement. 

"Human expressions are rude and animals do not understand them. Their natural environment is shrinking by leaps and bounds while traffic and railways play havoc on their well-being in Rajaji. A train engine's sound or a loud horn can be very discomforting for animals, but do we care?" asks SK Chandola, former Chief  Wildlife Warden of Uttarakhand. 

Nestled in the foothills of the Shivalik Range of Himalayas, Rajaji is blessed with some of the most pristine and picturesque forests in India. This 820 sq km park is precious ecological heritage that is home to magnificent biodiversity, flora and fauna, water bodies and streams. Wild animals like the tiger, elephant, leopard, sloth bear, deer and king cobra, among other species, inhabit the forest. The pristine wilderness is unmatched. Covering three districts of Uttarakhand, the park has more than 400 species of birds, including rare ones.

The park shot to fame after reports confirmed that the park has the capacity to sustain a healthy breeding population of wild tigers and act as a catalyst for ensuring healthy tiger population across north India. A Wildlife Institute of India report, The Status of Tigers, Co-Predators and Prey in India, 2008, declared it as the most promising landscape for long-term tiger conservation that would help in repopulating the forests which were once ruled by this majestic predator. The report reads: "If such small breeding populations in mini core areas are fostered in Rajaji by good management practices and protection, there is a possibility of repopulating the Shivalik Forest Division (UP) by dispersing tigers from Rajaji."

The Corbett Park, with 160 tigers, is considered as the source population of the entire terai region. Known to be wanderers, tigers disperse from the Corbett Park through corridors and occupy forests in and around Rajaji. They have reportedly been sighted in the far flung forests of Tehri up to an elevation of 3000m. The source value of the Corbett Park can only be sustained if these stray tigers are allowed free passage to the west in Rajaji and adjoining forests via natural corridors and crucial linkages. 

Much to the great predator's agony, owing to intense anthropogenic pressure, these passages bottleneck free animal movement. "Linkages like Lansdowne, Ganga Chilla-Motichur and Yamuna River Corridor block the tiger's movement and need better management," says Rasaily. 

The Lansdowne forest division in close proximity to the Sonanadi Wildlife Sanctuary in Corbett Park facilitates tiger movement from Corbett Park to Lansdowne and then to Rajaji Park and adjoining forests divisions in the west. Though the area has sufficient forest cover, low prey base due to poaching and increasing human activity is a hindrance for the tiger's free movement. However, recent hidden camera shots have revealed tigers in the Kolluchaur region of the Lansdowne division, including a breeding tigress. But the chances of their survival look grim. 

Lansdowne is under constant anthropogenic pressure from Gujjars and villages living in and around the forest. They are destroying crucial tiger habitat and with the division not part of a protected area, the forest officials express their inability to manage the area suitably. "Gujjars are more than willing to relocate and since the division is not part of the protected area, there is hardly anything that we can do for the Gujjars or the forest," says a senior forest officer.  

The Yamuna River Corridor too suffers from increasing human interference, making it extremely difficult for tigers to survive. Crucial for dispersing tigers from the Rajaji Park to Kalesar Forest in Haryana, the corridor suffers from illegal encroachments from the boulder mining mafia. Experts are of the opinion that immediate government intervention to tackle the illegal mining mafia in the area is crucial for tiger introduction in these forests.  

Park officials often express helplessness and a limited mandate owing to lack of funds and facilities that elude them despite decent tiger numbers. According to sources, the workforce in adjoining forest divisions of Lansdowne, Haridwar and Dehradun is demotivated and envies facilities that are provided to other protected areas. The Lansdowne forest division has a manpower of 35 while the nearby Kalagarh division under the Corbett Park employs 142 persons. "Why this bias? Other parks get huge funds and facilities, our tigers are tigers too, not dogs. We don't have jeeps or guns. If tigers have to increase, patrolling has to be intensified. For that we need more manpower and modern facilities. And if they cannot do this, the least they could do is to provide us with clean drinking water," says a disgruntled forest officer. 

Mindless development activities in and around Rajaji Park is turning into a nightmare for conservationists who dream of turning the landscape into a tiger haven. Says Chandola, "Rajaji is a thin strip of forest that is surrounded by big towns like Haridwar, Rishikesh and Dehradun. These expanding townships are confining the animals to small spaces which can spell doom for all the species, including tigers." 

He mentions how villages have turned into towns, towns to cities while forests have only shrunk in recent years. He recalls, "Gone are the days when I would sit in a village courtyard and watch wild animals from close proximity. This 'islandisation' of the park will devastate its pristine ecology."  

Also posing a threat to the ecology of Rajaji Park is a toxic foreign weed (lantana). This rapidly growing weed is ruining the habitat, spreading its tentacles through most of the park, eliminating the diversity of species and sub-species of grass, small plants and shrubs. "Due to its toxicity, the weed is usually avoided by the animals. Though it increases the green cover of the forest, it deprives herbivores of their diet of grass and other smaller plants," points GS Rajwar, an environment scientist.  

"Lantana is turning Rajaji into an ecological desert. It adapts perfectly to any environment and allows nothing else to survive," informs Rasaily. According to the forest department, 5,000 hectares of land out of the total of 26,000 hectares was cleared of lantana, but to everyone's dismay, the weed had spread further to 36,000 hectares. "Such is the endurance of the weed that even its seeds have a life of 60 years," he says.

Poaching too is a dangerous threat. Though no cases of tiger poaching have been reported from the park, poaching of other animals is a routine. "We are not aware of any tiger poaching in the area, but cases of leopard and deer poaching have been brought to our notice," says Tito Joseph, Programme Manager, Wildlife Protection Society of India. CBI sources confirmed Tito's views. Timber poaching and illegal mining is shrinking crucial habitat too.  

Officials in Dehradun confirmed the poaching of wild animals and cited poverty as the sole reason for the crime. "Part of the traditional hunting communities, people living around these forests, are very poor and do get involved in the crime for easy bucks. Rajaji is such an open park and people can easily enter from any corner without the forest department's knowledge," informs Chandola.    Another peril to the tiger population in the park are seasonal forest fires that turn huge tracts of forests to ash in a matter of few hours. "Forest fires during summers are attributed to humans living in and around the park area," says Rasaily. Fires during the recently concluded Kumbh Mela continued unabated for days. Fortunately, torrential rains helped in dousing the fire that would have otherwise decimated acres of pristine forestland and turned them into empty graveyards.   

However, despite several adversities, the park authorities are hopeful of turning Rajaji Park into a tiger retreat. Chandola is optimistic and claims that the 14 tiger mark could easily reach to 60 if the government shows the will to save the tiger and its habitat in Uttarakhand. Confirming Chandola's view, a forest official in Dehradun points to a study which claims that the park and its adjoining areas have the largest prey base for tigers in the world. "If managed and monitored strictly, we can achieve these numbers as these forests are a haven for the tigers to bloom," says Chandola.  

The forest department has initiated several steps for tiger conservation by proposing to build three flyovers - two flyovers on NH-72 and one on NH-58 - to ensure peaceful animal passage. Rasaily has vowed to annihilate any sort of poaching from the forests under his jurisdiction and plans to add huge tracts of grassland for tiger survival.   Locally extinct from 29 per cent of the districts of the Shivalik Gangetic flood plains, the great predator could make a grandiose return to these forests only if the breeding populations of tigers thrive inside the Rajaji Park. "If the tiger has to survive in India for generations to come, Rajaji needs fostering and care. Only then will the wild cats flourish in the forests that were their natural home before we forced them out," says Rasaily.

Tiger recovery plan to be drafted next week

In an effort to save the world’s remaining tiger population, thirteen “tiger-range countries” will meet at the Indonesian island of Bali to draft a global recovery plan starting Monday, July 12th and continuing until Wednesday, July 14th. Officials are optimistic that the draft plan will form the basis of a Global Tiger Recovery Program which will be discussed at the larger “tiger summit” being held in Russia on September 15th through the 18th.

There is no doubt that the world’s tiger population is in dire straights. Two of the three tiger species in Indonesia, the Javan and Balinese, are already extinct, while the Sumatran tiger is only believed to have 4000 left in the wild. On the global level, tiger populations have fallen from around 100,000 to only 3,200 in just the past century. If action is not taken soon, it will be too late to save the tiger from extinction and it appears that global leaders are understanding the tiger population’s plight.

The chief reasons for declining tiger populations are poaching, hunting and loss of habitat. The conflict between tiger and man is a huge problem to tackle as the two fight over land. Timber is constantly cut down to either make way for human development or used for the production of palm oil. As a result, both tigers and elephants have been forced to live in close proximity to villages. Indonesian conservation official Harry Santoso made the following statement:

“If we do nothing, tigers around the world, including Indonesia, will be extinct by 2035...Our program will focus on mitigation of human-animal conflict and law enforcement to stop tiger poaching. We will impose stricter punishments for criminals.” Santoso also added that the tiger’s habitats will also be protected.

The countries invited to attend the September summit include Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The countries of the United States, Australia, Germany and the organizations of World Bank and Asian Development Bank are expected to provide funds for the Tiger Recovery Plan’s implementation.

Bangladesh needs tougher law to save Royal Bengal tigers

010-07-04 12:20:00

Wildlife enthusiasts here have mooted tougher laws, like the ones India proposes to have, to save between 300 and 500 Royal Bengal tigers in the Sundarbans. The punishment provided in the Bangladesh Wildlife Act is a maximum of two years imprisonment with a maximum fine of Tk 2,000 ($28.8). This needs to be revised urgently, wildlife experts urged the government, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) reported. An amendment proposed to the Wildlife Protection Act of India envisages that any illegal hunting in tiger reserves or any attempt to encroach on reserved land in the country could incur a jail term of not less than seven years and a fine up to Rs.5 million ($72,150). Furthermore, poachers having a second run-in with the law could face much stiffer punishment, with a fine of up to Rs.7.5 million. The world has witnessed the loss of more than 97,000 tigers over the last 100 years. Specialists say today there are less than 3,000 tigers in 14 countries. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, there are some 2,100 Royal Bengal tigers alive today, of which India alone has 1,411. Bangladesh's Sundarbans is the home of the largest single unit of Royal Bengal tigers in the world with an estimated 300-500 tigers. Tigers are threatened in Bangladesh due to direct loss, prey depletion, and habitat degradation, said Mohammed Anwarul Islam, professor of Zoology at Dhaka University and the CEO of the Wildlife Trust of Bangladesh. 'To save the tiger, we need to save its prey population. In the Sundarbans, the spotted deer is the tiger's main prey but rampant poaching on the fringes of the Sundarbans is rapidly depleting the spotted deer population,' The Daily Star quoted him as saying.

A poem by A friend...

Earlier a king, now a creature bleeding,
it take an epic fall for this morphosis.
Yesterday's pride is todays pain,
But todays pride is nobody's gain.
Our eyes are drenched by an illusion,
coz bloody rains look transparent soothing burns.
Coz we feel proud about our own forest ,
that's built on someones shelter from the sun.
We live and they die by the sound of a gun.
The tigers who are black and yellow,
yet their population is small and blanche,
black is fading which colors their shadow.
If tiger's absent doe eyed deer is present,
If the deer's present green is gone.
Earth would be there without no lesions,
if we give some love and trade our swords.
                              

                                                     By:- a friend of mine, who insisted his name not to be mentioned. 

Sariska to get two more tigers

Jaipur, May 10 (IANS) The Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan is all set to get a tiger and a tigress from the Ranthambore national park, to add to the three big cats it acquired earlier. Wildlife officials are hoping the move will help in their tiger breeding plans.


“A team of experts is in Ranthambore now trying to identify a tiger and a tigress to be shifted to Sariska,” a senior official of the Rajasthan forest department told IANS.
Of the three tigers relocated earlier in Sariska, the first was a male tiger. It was airlifted from Ranthambore in June 2008, followed by two tigresses from the same national park located in Sawai Madhopur district.

Sources in the forest department said the DNA test of the two big cats would be conducted before they are shifted to Sariska, located in Alwar district.

The tiger relocated earlier had failed to impregnate the two tigresses, an official said, adding, “We want everything to go right this time.”

“The tiger has already mated with the tigresses but there is not the slightest indication of pregnancy in Sariska,” said a wildlife official.

Experts fear that the male and two females relocated last year share the same father, which won’t exactly make for a diverse gene pool.

A DNA test before the relocation can help prevent this, experts said.

The Sariska tiger reserve, situated over 110 km from here, used to be one of India’s most famous tiger sanctuaries and was at the centre of the Project Tiger conservation programme.

Originally a hunting preserve of the erstwhile Alwar state, Sariska was declared a wildlife reserve in 1955. In 1978 it was declared a tiger reserve. The present area of the park is 866 sq km.
The state government a few years ago faced criticism from political and other quarters on the disappearance of tigers from Sariska.

A Wildlife Institute of India report in 2005 confirmed that there were indeed no tigers left in Sariska.

Poaching was found to be the main reason for the dwindling tiger population.
The state government had submitted a detailed project to the central government for the rehabilitation of tigers in the reserve. Finally the project was sanctioned in November 2005.

Jairam saga: Roaring in China, sleeping in India

While the tiger will most likely not go extinct in the next half-century, its current trajectory is catastrophic. A combination of poor governance, bureaucratic sloth and lack of leadership is leading us towards an ecological disaster, argues wildlife activist Shehla Masood.

Union Minster for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh [ Images ] roared in Beijing [ Images ] to support Chinese companies like Huawei. I wish he had shown even a hundredth of that zeal to save tigers back home. Ramesh should have addressed the issue; he is given the responsibility to do so by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ]. He loved to do everything else except this.

I got the shock of my life what I recently went to his ministry as a wildlife activist working for tiger conservation through public awareness and collecting information through the Right to Information Act.

I always thought India would be proud of this minister and the prime minister -- both above board, sincere and cool. And what else can be the test except the attitude leaders shows towards those who can't speak or send applications to South Block yet suffer immeasurably at the hands of humans.
The sense of fairness we find so dearest when it comes to humans should be extended to all living creatures. The prime minister showed interest to help animals and committed himself to help tiger conservation vigorously. We were happy. Till we got to the bottom of the truth. His men and office have done nothing and will hardly do anything except showing extraordinary interest in Huawei or the Indian Premier League

The story of our struggle and the prime minister's lethargic attitude coupled with a strange work culture in Ramesh's office has disillusioned hundreds of workers like us.

When I refer to the animals I mean those who are tortured and poached by humans. There is a national-level committee, a high-powered body, to take care of this aspect and it was considered so important and Constitutionally significant that the government thought it befitting to have it headed by the country's chief executive officer -- the prime minister.

It is called the National Board for Wildlife. The prime minister is the chairman. It has 45 members, including Ramesh. There are 15 non-official members. Four of the non-official members are also part of the NBWL's 12-member standing committee. It is an apex policy making and monitoring board which has statutory status.

Its mandate to ensure the safety and protection of India's wildlife and to effect changes. Since it is headed by the one who is responsible to lead the country's governance, it is but natural to expect that this kind of a government agency would be working brilliantly under the eyes and supervision of the paraphernalia the country's public provides to the prime minister making its decisions effective and precise. But that has not happened.

The paradigm of conservation has drastically changed from pre-Independence to date. The reasons for tiger deaths in the country are beginning to show. Their presence is something majestic and powerful, but who cares?

Concerned over the increasing incidents of unnatural deaths of tigers in various reserves in the country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided to personally take up the matter with the concerned state governments. He chaired the NBWL's 5th meeting on March 18.

A proposal for a separate lion conservation project and the idea of a separate cadre for wildlife veterinary officers, among other topics, were discussed. Among others, Indian Council for Cultural Relations President Karan Singh and T K A Nair, the principal secretary to the prime minister, attended the meeting. The meeting discussed population control of spotted deer, delisting of corals from schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and the accidental deaths of wild elephants when they are hit by trains passing through national parks and sanctuaries.

The meeting was also due to consider convening of a park managers' congress, instituting awards for the best managed protected areas and restriction of central funding to protected areas directly under the wildlife wing and managed by trained officers.

It is shockingly sad to know, the information I received through RTI that in the last seven years the NBWL has met only five times. It is more shocking that till now no records -- minutes they call it -- of the deliberations held in all such meetings have been properly prepared and authenticated.

That means so far whatever was deliberated at the last five meetings has not been even put in the files as approved and done. The follow-up can begin only when the records of the last meetings have been approved. Nothing has been done so far. The board has 15 independent members who say that a sub-committee formed to look into the issue of tiger conservation has not actually been formed.

The NBWL is failing the nation as the minutes of meetings are being erroneously recorded awaiting official approval. This is confirmed by the principal information officer in his response to my letter. The prime minister has agreed to lend weight of his office for monitoring state governments, but to what avail and effectiveness?

What we are seeing is a species slipping through our fingers because of insensitiveness and carelessness of our bureaucrats. Their attitude is appalling and tragic.

India only has 1,000 tigers left, despite strenuous efforts to protect an animal that in the country is a symbol of national pride. More than 100,000 tigers prowled India's forests 100 years ago, but decades of hunting and habitat encroachment meant that by the 1970s the number had been drastically reduced.

India has failed miserably in protecting tigers in the wild. The animal that is a symbol for many cultures and religions is on the verge of extinction.

When I wanted to inspect the files pertaining the last meetings, the government officers refused and put me under great stress. It was after a lot of hurdles that I could come to see the officers at the ministry of environment in New Delhi [ Images ]. It is not as easy for the common citizen who lives at a distance from the national capital to come to the political centre of the nation and find his or her way to the great jungle of babudom. When I reached Paryavaran Bhawan, where the ministry is situated, many interesting experiences awaited me.


I found staff in the central ministry haywire, some gossiping, some sleeping on their tables, right in the middle of the office, with legs stretched. Some were smoking in the office.
I waited for 40 minutes as the principal information officer (deputy inspector general, wildlife) was not reachable. His phone kept ringing as the number dialed by the receptionist was not updated. The information on the public information officers was not mentioned/written as directed under the RTI Act.

When I finally traced and met the DIG, I requested him for more details. He was shocked at my disclosures about his staff, felt hesitant to share information, but at my unrelenting reference to the RTI Act he gave up and promised to allow me inspection of files containing NBWL deliberations meetings at a later appointment. But this too, which should have been a smooth procedure, could happen after I gave him a short lesson on the RTI and urged sincerity towards his job.

There are 37 project tiger reserves in the country and 663 protected areas. But what purpose are they serving?
Despite 20 years of international conservation efforts, the ground has been lost to save the tiger because of the government's inattentive attitude. All sub-species of tigers are declared critically endangered species by wildlife organisations and the United Nations.

Of the eight original sub-species of tigers, three have become extinct in the last 60 years, an average of one every 20 years. The Bali tiger became extinct in the 1930s. The Caspian tiger was forced into extinction in the 1970s. And the Javan tiger followed in the 1980s.

The number of tigers in the 1900s -- over 100,000 -- dropped to 4,000 in the 1970s. Today, they are a critically endangered species with the total of all the wild populations of the five remaining subspecies (Bengal tigers, Indo-Chinese tigers, Siberian tigers, South China tigers, and Sumatran tigers) to be roughly estimated anything between 4,600 and 7,700.

The statistics are fudged, the information is falsely recorded, inquiries are withheld and culprit officers are promoted (the Panna reservation case -- out of 40 tigers six years before, we have none today).

Just a lot of rhetoric and no action. With this kind of governance, which extends to all parties and shades, can we hope to conserve even the last of the tigers?

According to the Wildlife Protection Act, the maximum sentence for poaching is seven years imprisonment along with a fine. I have not come across any case where the accused has been given the maximum sentence. We have a miserable system. There is no governance to speak of. Bureaucratic indifference is the norm.

Poachers have emptied two of India's 37 protected tiger reserves. In India, isolated populations now occupy just seven per cent of the territory they enjoyed a century ago as a result of inadequately implementing conservation policies and mismanaging funds. While the tiger as a wild species will most likely not go extinct within the next half-century, its current trajectory is catastrophic.

If this trend continues, the current range will shrink even further, and wild populations will disappear from many more places, or dwindle to the point of ecological extinction. None other than due to a combination of increased poaching, habitat destruction, the attitude of the babus and poor conservation efforts by governments.
I will make sure Madhya Pradesh remains a tiger state.