A Black-book of Poachers
If catching a poacher was tough in India, getting him prosecuted is infinitely more tough. The big problem is that poachers are always on the move and strike at different reserves each time. This creates a problem for the police, as they are unable to corroborate the past history of the poacher in front of the magistrate, resulting in the poacher being let off easily. If there could be a central repository of all these crimes against wildlife it would be so much easier to prove cases against poachers.

The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) has created one such database, a veritable of who's who of Indian poachers. "At WPSI, we work extensively with enforcement agencies such as the Forest Department and the police. We have found that one of our most effective tools is our wildlife crime database which has over 15,000 records of wildlife crime from in and around India," shares Onkuri Majumdar, senior project officer and the legal program, WPSI.

"Analyzing the records in our database allows us to monitor trends in wildlife crime, which, in turn, allows us to advise enforcement officials. Secondly, we often find that poachers and traders linked to organized wildlife crime networks tend to stay in the business all their lives, and work in close knit cliques of relatives and family friends. Our database allows us to track these criminal networks as well," she adds.

Thus, if the WPSI team finds that a recently arrested individual has been arrested/convicted before for a wildlife crime, they pass the information to the public prosecutor so that the criminal's bail application can be opposed more strongly. This database is regularly updated at WPSI and is a big asset in the fight against poaching.

Roger...Roger
Effective communication is the key to protection from forest fires, poaching, timber felling, grazing, encroachments and other illegal activities. While the poachers have been known to use sophisticated communication devices like wireless sets, UHB Radio, and even ham radio, the state of the forest guard is abysmal.

"As many as nine tiger reserves- Manas, Valmiki, Indravati, Melghat, Pench (Maharashtra), Tadoba-Andhari, Periyar, Sariska, and Ranthambore were not equipped with adequate means of communication to counter illegal activities. In the Manas Tiger Reserve, four ranges, fourteen beats and two check posts were functioning without wireless network," the CAG audit states.

Not only that, even in sanctuaries where the communication network did exist, in most the devices were damaged. The Nagarjunsagar Tiger Reserve could not utilize the available communication/wireless network as per the advice of police authorities due to extremist activities in the area, and no persuasive action was taken by the forest authorities as of March 2006.

It is obvious that the Project Tiger officials do not pay much attention to communication among the guards. The consequences of such laxity are quite disastrous, and in the end it is the tiger population that takes the hit.

On the Tiger's Trail
One of the best known methods to trail a tiger or a lion is through radio telemetry. In this, a tiger is tranquilized and a collar containing a radio antenna is put on the tiger. A researcher armed with a receiver can easily track a tiger with the aid of radio telemetry.

"Radio telemetry is a very good example of how technology can help. The tiger, as a species, is difficult to see. By nature tigers are very elusive and the quite hard to spot in the tall elephant grass. Also, it is a fact that they travel quite long distances. A male tiger often lords over an area of around 250 sq km, thus, without radio telemetry it would be hard for a researcher to track him down," says Chundawat. In the past Chundawat has had immense success in discerning tiger behavioral patterns using radio telemetry and satellite collars. But then the red-tape stalled all Chundawat's research efforts.

"The biggest issue in use of technology, say radio telemetry or chemical immobilization, is the problems of getting research permissions. The officials managing wildlife are usually rather ignorant of science and technology and the utility of sound research. As a result, despite tremendous support to technology in other fields like medicine, ICT, agriculture etc, the field of conservation is held back by archaic mindsets. Sadly, our science policy leaders are ignoring this problem," says Karanth.

Mapping the Forest
Another ambitious project launched by the government was digital mapping of all the wildlife sanctuaries and tiger reserves in India. It is important as an understanding of spatial factors such as connectivity between forest patches can help managers plan where and how to assign resources and efforts in general. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are an essential tool to both wildlife managers and researchers alike.

"With the development of technology, use of Geographical Positioning System (GPS) is also coming into vogue. It has been used to track the movement of Siberian cranes and sea turtles. Some tigers radio collared recently have a small GPS attachment which puts itself on at a certain time of the day as programmed, and then searches for satellites for fixing the location of the animal. The unit switches off by itself. It also transmits data to handheld devices which can be transferred onto a GIS," says Banerjee.

Yet the signs have not been quite encouraging on the mapping front. For instance, in March 2004, the Ministry of Environment and Forests sanctioned a project at the cost of Rs 1.39 crore for mapping wildlife sanctuaries and parks by the WII. The project was to be completed in 36 months with the aim to generate accurate, reliable and latest base line spatial information on forest types and density (using satellite imagery) and topographic features (supplemented by latest satellite imagery), On the completion of the pilot, WII was to take up the complete mapping and monitoring of wildlife sanctuaries in coordination with the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) and Aligarh Muslim University.

But according to the facts in the CAG report, "out of the five sites selected for this pilot project, three were tiger reserves, namely Corbett, Tadoba-Andhari and Dudhwa. The identified targets included generation of satellite data by July 2004 and securing the Survey of India (SoI) topographic maps by September 2004. However, both activities were not completed even as of March 2006. As against the projected expenditure of Rs 1.20 crore in the first two years, Rs 0.73 crore was released of which only Rs 0.30 crore was spent till the end of February 2006, indicating poor progress of the project."

"Project tiger creates much hype about use of technology, but the performance on ground has been rather poor. They claimed to provide web-based access to their survey data three years ago. I see no sign of it at all even today. A lot of hype really," says Karanth.

George Schaller, a globally renowned field biologist, and known as the greatest naturalist of the 20th century, sums up the issue beautifully. "Field biologists, such as Karanth and Chundawat, can use technology in the form of satellite radio-collars, camera-traps, DNA analysis of scats and other techniques to determine population size, movement patterns, and other aspects. That provides extremely valuable information. Such knowledge is essential for conservation-but it is not conservation. Conservation, in the final analysis, is culture, economics-and politics," he mentions.

Baghbahadur and More
Indeed what Schaller says is quite true. In the end, conservation is also politics and the only way (read the right way) to influence politicians is through public opinion. If there is a huge rabble raised, usually the politician will have to back down. Internet can play a big role in influencing the opinion by projecting the true state of affairs to millions of individuals across the globe. Quite many tiger activist have woken up to the potential of the net.

Ajay Sartape is one such individual. He has recently launched a tiger portal, www.baghbahadur.com, in conjunction with a friend. He aims to consolidate all the disparate information on the internet on a single site. "Not only do we intend to provide information but also attempt to promote conservation. The problem with tiger conservation is that the common person is unable to associate him or herself with the cause. By providing different means and channels, we hope to spread the word on tiger all across India. The success of Baghbahadur will be in influencing policy decisions through public opinion," says Sartape. Tall aim, but Internet has been known to connect individuals like no other medium did so in the past. Thus it could play a big role in conservation.

"Internet has revolutionized how information on conservation issues is disseminated. It also improves fund raising opportunities for conservation groups and the dissemination of knowledge about the species in question," opines Banerjee.

Aniruddha Belasare micro chipping leopards in Maharashtra

Any Silver Lining?
The complete report by WII will be out by December 2007. In such a gloomy scenario, one wonders if there is really any hope left for the lord of the jungle. "Technology can enable informed decision in a timely fashion and more importantly make the whole process transparent, making people accountable for their decisions and actions. This is what has been missing in Project Tiger," says Chundawat.

Thapar sounds skeptical. "The real fact of life is that tiger protection is not a priority for the government. So all it does is provide lip service. In many ways, it was only under the Gandhi family's direct rule that the tiger was safe. After Rajiv Gandhi's death, the numbers have been fast declining. Even the current government does not seem keen. There was the talk of setting up a state-of-the-art Wildlife Crime Bureau, but it exists only on paper," says Thapar, ending with a note of caution, "There will not be any recovery. Damage done is damage permanent."

Meanwhile, Rajesh Gopal, director, Project Tiger was away in Europe and Ganga Singh, additional director, India Ecodevelopment Project, Ministry of Environment and Forests, would not comment, "as we need clearance from the ministry," he said.

But can technology come up with a solution that will solve the issue, something like what was shown in Jurassic Park. Adam Barlow from the Sunderbans Tiger Project in Bangladesh dismisses the thought. "Blind faith; this is generated with respect to the idea that technological advances can combat large scale long term environmental damage-not with current knowledge, which has been proven insufficient, but with the hope that 'well we're bound to think of something!' The reliance on advancement in technology to solve social and environmental problems is a fallacy, made dangerous by growing acceptance," he says.

As Schaller says, with characteristic brevity and clarity, "India has to decide whether it wants to keep the tiger or not. It has to decide if it is worthwhile to keep its National Symbol, its icon, representing wildlife. It has to decide if it wants to keep its natural heritage for future generations, a heritage more important than the cultural one, whether we speak of its temples, the Taj Mahal, or others, because once destroyed it cannot be replaced. If the answer is yes, then plans can be made and implemented."

Jim Corbett, the famous hunter and conservationist, had sounded a warning more than half a century back in his famous book, the Man-eaters of Kumaon. "I am convinced that all sportsmen, no matter whether their viewpoint has been a platform on a tree, the back of an elephant or their own feet, will agree with me, and that is, that a tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage and that when he is exterminated, as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support, India will be the poorer by having lost the finest of her fauna." So let us not bat an eyelid and rally to the tiger's support, there might just be a chance, a rather slim one.

Shashwat Chaturvedi
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

Page(s)   1  2