Uproar for Tiger tourism

It appears that the tiger never stays out of controversy. After the uproar about tiger numbers in the country about two years ago, the topic in tiger conservation that stirred a storm across the country was the recent closure of tourism in tiger reserve core zones by the Supreme Court.

The lifting of the embargo by the court after eleven weeks of closure had mixed reactions. I am sure there were celebrations in some of the high profile reserves where tourism flourished as a titanic service industry. Some moaned, though most agree that low-key tourism as an education tool is a necessity.

Perhaps the court achieved one of the important goals it had possibly aimed at. All state governments have now delineated and notified buffer zones. The big question is do all tiger reserves have ecologically viable buffers that meets the goals of a buffer?

The authorities insist on including villages into buffers but there is little lucidity to have matrix of villages which have no tiger habitat either to act as sinks or permeable corridors. Where no tiger habitat exists outside the core zones, eco-sensitive zones would be better choices than buffers. They regulate land use patterns on the immediate vicinity of tiger reserves where the growth of development such as mines or highways cannot be friendly neighbours to tigers.

Set of guidelines

The tourism was allowed to reopen based on a set of guidelines developed and submitted to the court. The two main thrusts of the guidelines are on ecological and economic aspects of tiger tourism.

The day after the court’s order to reopen tourism, media highlighted that 20 per cent of the core areas were to be utilised for tourism.

I was surprised when the guidelines were read in detail. The much publicised regulation that only 20 per cent of the core area is to be used for tourism does not hold water. The guideline recommends “in case the current usage exceeds 20 per cent, the local advisory committee may decide on a timeframe for bringing down the usage to 20 per cent”. The word ‘may’ casts a doubt if tourism is going to be restricted to 20 per cent.

The glaring of all the violations which attract public attention and the ire of wildlife enthusiasts is the riotous behavior of safari drivers and mahouts. But the key issue that is out of public observation and has real impact on tiger conservation is fragmentation of habitats where tourism infrastructure blocks corridors.

The guidelines suggests ‘shall inter alia, include identification of corridor connectivity and important wildlife habitats and mechanisms to secure them’.

I wonder if out rightly putting a condition to make corridors as a legal category under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and recommending specific solutions to defragment blocked corridors could have brought legal teeth to reduce fragmentation effects. Without such unambiguous endorsements tourism infrastructure will continue to threaten tiger preservation.

The state governments have been asked to frame tourism and eco-tourism strategies within six months. This is another opportunity for framing policies that can make real changes for tiger conservation. The forthcoming documents should emphasise on mitigating the problem of fragmentation and callously deal with land use even if the infrastructure is on private land.

Similarly using ecological criteria tourism should be shifted to buffer zones, wherever such forest patches exists and have the potential for tourism, in a phased but time bound manner. This in the long haul will help both tourism and tigers. 

On the economic front it is recommended that the park entry fee be utilised for conservation purposes.

The tiger foundations have already been implementing this for some years now. The guidelines seems to have watered down the earlier concept of 20 per cent of the resort revenues for local community upliftment and human-wildlife conflict mitigation to a new model where the conservation fees is based on category of facilities, occupancy and duration of operation. A local advisory committee has been suggested for every tiger reserve to monitor these guidelines.

A minimum sighting distance of 20 meters from the animal has to be maintained. A forest official quipped “who will hold the tape on the other side”. Other recommendations such as proper disposal of waste, adhering to pollution norms, use of renewable energy, are all rules that have been etched in stone under various guidelines, rules and acts.

I wonder if there is anything new in these guidelines to set things in the right direction. Unless there were time binding specific recommendations to defragment corridors the guidelines in the current state holds little on-ground benefits for the striped cat. I wonder what did this uproar and media hype achieve.Until another Ajay Dubey shakes the system the logjam will continue.

(The author is a conservation biologist working on tiger conservation in the Western Ghats)