Tigers fast dying out despite campaigns: Experts

[Mrudul Godbole]

KATMANDU: The world's tiger population is declining fast despite efforts to save them, and new strategies are urgently needed to keep the species

from dying out, international wildlife experts said on Tuesday.

"We are assembled here to save tigers that are at the verge of extinction,'' Nepal's secretary of forest and soil conservation, Yuvaraj Bhusal, told a conference of tiger experts from 20 countries, including the 13 where wild tigers are still found.

An estimated 3,500 to 4,000 tigers now roam the world's forests, down from the more than 100,000 estimated at the beginning of the 20th century. All the remaining tigers are in Asia.

Participants at the conference, which also includes the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund and other groups, plan to discuss strategies for tiger conservation, as well as challenges such as poaching, the trade of tiger parts and conflicts between tigers and local populations.

“Despite our efforts in the last three decades, tigers still face threats of survival. The primary threat is from poaching and habitat loss,'' Nepal's prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told the conference.

He said extreme poverty has also challenged efforts. “Global and regional solidarity and corrective measures are more necessary now than ever to face these challenges,'' the prime minister said.

Bhusal, the forest secretary, said participants hope to make high-level policy makers in their countries more aware of the animal's possible extinction.

The 13 countries where wild tigers are still found include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Link - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/h...ow/5169093.cms

[Sabyasachi Patra]

This is an acknowledgment of the fact that our present way of approach towards conservation has failed. A few individuals or organisations may have made a name for themselves, but future of the tiger is as bleak as ever.

It is a fact that in India, initially Project Tiger was a success in the places where it was started. However the issues of ensuring inviolate spaces for tigers and other animals, protection, lack of prosecution of poachers etc were not resolved.

People soon forgot that Project tiger doesn't mean only protection of the tiger. Hence, the forest department officials started resorting to inflating tiger numbers. Nobody realised that protection of tiger, the apex predator, means protection of the entire wilderness area with all the flora, fauna.

Now, the same thing is being rehashed and the word "landscape" is mentioned. Tiger protection was never about creating a "id" card and tracking one tiger. It was always about protecting the landscape where the tiger lives, its habitat, prey, co-predators. Unfortunately, the contiguity with other forest areas are lost and our wilderness areas are like small oases surrounded by concrete jungles.

All this talk, with some of those being old wine in new bottle, will do little to save our tiger.

Sabyasachi