Ads on TV achieve little....

Ads on TV achieve little, equip those in front of the battle
1,411 tigers..really?

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Only 1,411 left…goes the now famous Aircel ad. But is this shocking, shameful number also an exaggeration? The ad quotes the 2008 All India Tiger Census—it’s two years, and many tiger deaths later now. In 2009, we lost 86 tigers, up from 32 poached in 2008. These represent only the recorded cases, the real mortality would be much higher. Tiger skins and bones seized are just the tip of the iceberg—enforcement agencies say that for every one seized, about ten slip away…unnoticed. Of course, new cubs or ‘recruits’ have been added, but not enough to compensate the loss. Why am I reasoning, anyway? Even the highest office, the Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh has confessed in a moment of characteristic candour, “ that this number is an exaggeration.”

In 2010, the International Year of The Tiger, ten deaths have been recorded. One, if you please, was felled by poisoned arrows and country guns, tied to a bamboo stake, the meat cooked and eaten, and the skin sold for a neat profit.

Why?

Why with all this buzz about the tiger have we failed to protect it? Ad blitzkrieg apart, India has a special conservation initiative, Project Tiger, strict protectionist laws, a Tiger Task Force constituted by the Prime Minister—yet their numbers have dipped to the lowest ever, in two reserves the Panthera tigris is extinct and in 14 others extinction beckons.

I find the answer, atleast in part, in Muhammad Umar, ‘Tiger Reporter’, Palamu Tiger Reserve, Jharkhand. As the designation implies, it was Muhammad’s job to doggedly follow and monitor, the tiger. His day began at 4 am, scouting for pugmarks, spoor, scat, following the lone tigress in his beat well into the night, armed with just a lathi, and a conviction to protect his ward. He rarely took leave to visit his family in a village some miles away; ‘Rani’ would miss him’, he reasoned. Plus the staff strength was too less—if he left, his beat, and the tigress would go unprotected. In my next visit to the reserve, Muhammad was no more. He died on duty, in the forest. Killed—by an elephant? By naxals? We don’t know. He was one among our vast green army protecting the tiger, the forests—and our source of water. There are many such unsung soldiers—I must mention a forest guard I met in Kaziranga. His name escapes me currently, but I remember him well. His hand was twisted, mutilated by a tigress he had helped rescue when she strayed into a village. Most in his position would bear a grudge, shirk their task. But our man went about his job, walking the reserve, a rusty .315 slung over his shoulder. “The tigress was frightened by the mob, she was a mother protecting her cubs, who could blame her?” he explained. Incidentally, he has been on the job nearly two decades, hasn’t yet made it to the permanent rolls, and gets a mere 1,700 per month for his trouble. Usually, six months past the due date.

Yet this underpaid, unequipped foot soldier is the man on the front to save the tiger. Little wonder that our tigers continue to be slaughtered. Though well-documented, the plight of the forest guard rarely find a voice in the corridors of power—his condition has remained unchanged in the 35 years of Project Tiger. Unless we equip the man on the front, can we save the tiger?

Of course, this is just one problem that plagues the tiger. For all the stringent punishment that the Wildlife Protection Act dictates, barely one per cent of poachers are convicted. We are still fighting for every inch of tiger habitat, as business houses backed by politicians push for mines, highways, power projects, dams. Worse, the states on whom rests the final onus of protection, are simply not bothered. Funds to tiger reserves are delayed, apathetic officers continue to man reserves, there is resistance to create and protect buffer zones and corridors critical for survival of tigers and there continues to be 50 per cent vacancy at the field level in most reserves. And while Project Tiger (or the National Tiger Conservation Authority, as it is now called) might try and prevail, it has but an advisory role and is usually conveniently ignored.

For all its good intent, Project Tiger, forgive the pun, remains a Paper Tiger.