Our tigers and the Chinese threat

With laws prioritising protection over conservation, unprotected tigers face human conflict and illegal trade

A couple of days ago, I read a worrisome article. It stated that the tiger in India is under threat from an increase in demand for tiger parts in China. A tiger from Tadoba was found in a bag in Guwahati, on its way to our neighbour. Has the trade started again, and if so, how and why? What is happening now that the Chinese feel they can revert back to killing our tigers? Again. 

Whilst the boom in tiger population has saturated most of our protected forests, a re-establishment of corridors by the tigers themselves, who have started to use revenue and patta lands to follow their traditional migration routes, has resulted in filling areas that had once lost their tiger. But this has come at a cost.

Once the tiger started moving freely, without fear of humans, outside protected areas, it settled in fields and bushes surrounding our villages and started feeding on cattle. I have noticed tigers moving into position at ten in the morning, that’s when the cows and goats go out to graze and three in the evening when they return to the village. The tiger knows their ways and lies in wait. Though this is gratifying news to many in the cities, it leads to conflicts in rural India that are nearly impossible to overcome. We know it. The Chinese agents who want our tigers know it too. 

The present laws in place, and the mindset of the officials, are mainly focused on protection, not conservation. Sadly, the meaning of conservation is the least understood. Conservation is a win-win solution for every living creature in a given eco-biosphere. 

Implementation of conservation policies, a few decades back, would have ensured that today tigers, leopards, elephants, deer, boar, reptiles, birds, humans, cattle, dogs, cats, sheep and goats, to name a few, all have equal opportunity at living a normal life. That all has a win-win solution. To arrive at such a win-win situation, there needs to be an effective dialogue between those involved in conserving the eco-biosphere.

It’s a well-accepted fact that a productive dialogue with the specific intention of building trust between locals and officials is essential for conservation. Add to this, policies that are in sync with ground-level reality, where the local people are included in decision-making, and we have the making of something good. It is clear that for the tiger to survive outside the forests, it needs the blessing of our villagers.

A position will have to be arrived at where the villager is ready to make the requisite sacrifice to accommodate his tigers. The day the villagers start working closely with officials, that day the poachers will lose their ability to move freely within our sensitive areas and our tigers will be safe. 

Having the villagers working hand in hand with officials has untold advantages. Let’s assume we need to increase tiger numbers to 5000.  The first thing we would need to do is increase the land base for these animals to establish territory. There being no more forests available, village lands will have to be utilised to accommodate this increment. At the cost of repetition, I have to reiterate that this would have been accomplished with ease, had we started the process of conservation decades ago.

The mere declaration of eco-sensitive zones without an effort to find a win-win solution for all animals will never work. On the contrary it is backfiring. Sadly now, there being no stand-alone conservation laws in place, any cat that chooses to move outside the park boundary is in direct conflict with humans unwilling to give way. A conflict where the only loser is the tiger, even as the Chinese wait gleefully.    

Those tigers too young to fight for their territory, and those too old to hold theirs, are driven out by existing tigers. They move out into unprotected, village lands. In areas where tourism has been allowed to flourish, these tigers are embraced, whilst in other areas, they remain a threat to humanity. Anything that is a threat to humans, over time, will be erased. Now imagine an agent from China offering $10,000 for such a tiger? 
 
This is why I believe controlled tourism is a perfect solution. I have seen it work in many countries in Africa. No matter what the experts say, it’s a fact that tourism has had a positive impact on tiger populations and conservation as a whole. It’s the only tool for conservation that takes nothing from the forest, yet bridges gaps seamlessly. With village after village embracing tourism, both the prey and predator populations have boomed in tourism zones allowing the villagers to get on the same side as the tiger. 

As I write this, I know of tigers roaming freely near towns and villages. I worry for them as I know that to sustain them, we have to embrace conservation; and come up with our own unique, all-encompassing, conservation laws. The day we do this, we will plug the gaps that the Chinese are using to get to our tigers. 

Sadly, I fear that this required shift in policy might just be a bridge too far. But like every Indian, I too live with hope as my support.

3925
Max No. of tigers in India as per the 2022 Census

Saad Bin Jung is a former cricketer who played first-class cricket. He is now a conservationist and runs a wildlife resort in South India

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