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    Ranthambore: Holding out hope for tiger conservation

    Synopsis

    The third Asia Ministerial Meeting on Tigers will occur in the national capital on April 12-14.

    JAIPUR: The third Asia Ministerial Meeting on Tigers will occur in the national capital on April 12-14. In 2010, at the first such meeting at St Petersburg in Russia, ministers from 13 tiger range countries – Russia, China, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia – set a goal of doubling the number of tigers in the wild by 2022, the next Chinese year of the tiger.

    In 2010, it was estimated that there were 3,200 tigers left in the wild. According to more recent estimates, the number of tigers in the wild is now about 3,500. What is significant is that half all wild tigers in the world are in India.

    The last wild tiger caught on camera trap in Cambodia was in 2007. Recently, tigers were declared ‘functionally extinct’ in that country. The government of Cambodia, in partnership with WWF, has set about attempting to reintroduce tigers.

    Tigers are prolific breeders. If their habitats are properly conserved and wild corridors preserved, they bounce back. It was estimated that India had only 1,411 tigers in 2011. Conservation efforts over the next decade bore fruit, and 2,226 tigers were counted during the 2014 census.

    However, there are severe threats not just to tigers but all wildlife in India. According to the Forest Survey of India, by February 2016, only 4.8% of India’s total area was demarcated as “protected area”, guarded for purposes of nature and wildlife conservation.

    A proposal to mine forests in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, is presently pending with the government. London-headquartered minerals and metals mining corporation Rio Tinto has proposed open-cast mining for diamond in over 900 hectares of protected forests, close to Panna Tiger Reserve. Panna’s tiger population had died out by 2009, but after a successful reintroduction programme, the tiger population there is now estimated at 26.

    In 2012, Greenpeace showed that coal mine lease area and coal production capacity had doubled in five years, from 2007 to 2011. Much of the coal mining was in areas dense with forests and rich in tigers – Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, parts of eastern Maharashtra and Odisha.

    A recent WWF report Beyond the Realms of Ranthambore: The Last Abode for Arid Zone Tigers underlines the need to protect wildlife corridors to conserve genetic diversity of tigers, so the animals can disperse safely. Field studies were undertaken to understand the route that tigers took while radiating out of Ranthambore.

    The report listed threats to tiger landscape – increased human population and expansion of agriculture fields, the pressure of grazing, abundance of weeds, mining, expanding road and rail networks, flattening of river ravines of the Chambal, Banas and other rivers in Central India, and poaching. The tiger areas also have temples, and some of these see a large number of pilgrims.

    Sunny Shah, coordinator of the Western India Tiger Landscape programme of WWF, however, is hopeful: “The reintroduction of tigers in Sariska and Panna offers a successful model for other countries and for the rest of India. The dispersal of tigers from Ranthambore is also a good sign. We are working towards restoration of tiger habitats and corridors in protected areas near Ranthambore. The dispersing tigers offer us an opportunity to repopulate areas that have historically been tiger habitats.”


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