Indian Tigers in Danger of Extinction
11/20/99
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Title: FEATURE-Indian tigers in danger of extinction
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 20, 1999
Byline: Mian Ridge
NEW DELHI, Nov 21 (Reuters) - An alarm sounded around the world when
India's tiger population was found to be teetering on the brink of
extinction in the erly 1970s. In 1972, the government formed
Project Tiger to protect the country's tiger forests and also slapped
a ban on shooting any of the country's remaining 1,800 tigers.
Funds flowed in from all over the world and by 1989 the number of
tigers in India had climbed to 4,300.
Today, it stands at around 3,500 and, once again, conservationists are
worried.
Shooting for recreation is a distant memory from the days of the
British Raj, but there are now other, less easily controlled threats
to India's wild cats.
Population growth and rural developments such as the construction of
mammoth dams in pockets of the country are destroying the natural
habitats of tigers.
Although trafficking in wildlife products is banned in India, poaching
of tigers for their skin, bones and body parts used in Chinese
medicine has exacerbated the problem.
``There was a certain euphoria when the number of tigers built up
after the forming of Project Tiger but now we see it falling again
with habitat destruction and an increase in demand for tiger parts,''
said M.K. Ranjitsinh, director of the World Wildlife Fund Tiger
Conservation Programme.
Conservationists say tigers could be extinct by 2010 if steps to save
them are not intensified.
``If we fail to win some of today's battles, tigers will be virtually
extinct by the time of the next Year of the Tiger in 2010,'' Nature
magazine quoted Valmik Thapar, vice-chairman of a tiger conservation
group, as saying.
SHRINKING FORESTS
Conservationists say it is important to maintain the tiger population
at a certain level for the sake of the ecosystem.
``The tigers are a lifeline for an ecosystem. Everywhere there is a
good tiger habitat, it is the sole source of a river system,'' says
Project Tiger director P.K. Sen.
``If our rivers die what happens then? No drinking water, no
irrigation, no fresh water. The soil is eroded without tree cover and
civilisation in the area is destroyed.''
The best example of the benefits of tiger forests until recently was
the Narmada river which flows through Kanha Tiger Reserve in the
central state of Madhya Pradesh.
The reserve supplied water to the Narmada even when other sources
failed. But the building of a large dam is destroying huge tracts of
pristine forest.
``Whenever you construct a dam, a reservoir or a hydro-electric power
plant it is always on forest land,'' says Sen.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests says 19 percent of India's
land mass is forested, of which nearly half is degraded by intensive
farming, livestock grazing and forest fires.
It has formulated a National Forestry Action Programme which aims to
see 33 percent of India forested in 20 years.
While Project Tiger has succeeded in protecting about 25 of India's
forest reserves, it is the non-protected areas of forest that are most
at risk.
MILITANCY KILLING WILDLIFE
Another factor responsible for the fall in India's tiger population is
the rise of insurgency in some parts of the country such as the
northeast and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Ranjitsinh says that in Andhra Pradesh left-wing extremists known as
Naxalites have provoked villagers to kill tigers because the
government was slow in paying villagers for cattle killed by tigers.
``The Naxalites told locals that the government wasn't doing anything
so they should get rid of the tigers themselves. Over 28 animals, both
tigers and leopards, were killed,'' he says.
The Wildlife Protection Society of India estimates that at least 440
tigers have been killed in India in the past six years and believes
that in many cases the bodies were sent abroad for use in Chinese
medicine.
``After 1990, when the numbers began to slide down again we found
tigers were being killed for their body parts,'' says Sen.
Tiger parts have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more
than 1,000 years to treat everything from skin disease and convulsions
to laziness. As China's population has exploded and its people have
become more affluent, demand has risen.
Curbing such poaching can be difficult, because unlike the past when
only tiger skins and trophies were being sold, today all the parts of
a tiger are being smuggled out of the country.
``What is often forgotten is that it is population growth, mounting
human pressure, that lies behind all threats to tigers,'' says
Ranjitsinh. ``Unless this pressure eases, wildlife will always be in
danger.''