Worried about the dwindling tiger count, environmentalists have asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to declare areas around tiger reserves as “critical wildlife habitats”, which will be off-limit to the industry and businesses including hotels and tour operators.
Requesting the Prime Minister to secure tiger habitats against “destructive development”, they said in their letter that such notification would not allow projects like mining, big dams, expressways, industries, logging and urban infrastructure to come up near the forests.
There are provisions in the national environment policy which describe these spots as “sites with incomparable values” and in the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (recognition of forest rights) Act, 2006 that portrays such spots as “critical wildlife habitats”.
Another suggestion is to set up a sanctuary advisory committee, as mandated by the Wild Life Amendment Act 2003. No state has set up this panel so far, says the green outfits that include Kalpavriksha, Bangalore’s Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment and Mysore’s Nature Conservation Foundation.
According to the ongoing tiger census being conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India, the tiger count has gone down significantly in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattishgarh and Rajasthan compared to the last census. While these states accounted for 1,006 tigers in 2001-02, the count has gone down to 417 at the moment.
However, WII scientists claim that earlier census was based only on pug-marks, whereas the ongoing one is more scientific as it combines a number of technologies including camera trapping and scat DNA analysis. The tiger census for the entire country is likely to be completed by the end of 2007.
Filling up the vacancies in the forest department should also be a priority for the government to tide over the tiger crisis, they say, adding that recruitment of younger ground level staff in forest departments especially from local communities is required because of the hazardous and energetic nature of the job.
