Save humans, not tigers

[Guest guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/15/wildlife.india

Save people, not tigers

 

India's tiger population is in decline, but why should humans suffer in

order to preserve it?

All comments

()<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/15/wildlife.india?commentpag\

e=1>

 

- Kirk Leech

- guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>,

- Sunday June 15 2008

- Article history

 

The tiger population of the Jim Corbett National

Park<http://www.jimcorbettnationalpark.com/>in India is growing so

rapidly that the authorities are expanding the

reserve's size. This may sound like good news, but it's not all good.

 

Increasing the size of the park will mean further encroaching on the land of

local people already suffering hardship. In addition, the normal

conservation methods are just not working. Tiger numbers across India are

still in decline and the park is doing nothing but managing that decline. If

we care so much for these charismatic creatures then more radical ideas are

needed, and we should not make locals pay the price for our love of the

tiger.

 

In India, more than three million people live inside the country's 500

national parks, reserves and sanctuaries. It's estimated that around

300,000<http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=5044400>live in

the 28 tiger reserves. While researching the plight of 40,000

indigenous people in Gujarat who found themselves virtual

prisoners<http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5161/>in

a wildlife sanctuary designed for animals rather than people.

 

Some of the most stringent wildlife laws anywhere in the world are to be

found in India. The Forest Department police who control these sanctuaries

and reserves are armed, and empowered by wildlife protection laws to enforce

restrictions in the protected areas. Indigenous people must not hunt, enter

the sanctuary with weapons, or light fires without permission. They must not

hurt or frighten wildlife, poach, damage trees, mine, collect forest

produce, fish, trap animals, or clear land for cultivation.

 

Local people living on the edge of the Jim Corbett Park who, already

excluded from their land, are now threatened with further punishment with

the creation of an 18-mile wide extension to the park. Not only will they

lose land but also they will see further attacks on their livestock who are

regularly killed by tigers and leopards. The creation of a tourist

attraction is no replacement for the loss of land and livelihoods.

 

The imminent extinction of the tiger is a key shibboleth of wildlife

conservation. In 1995 the International Union for Conservation of Nature

claimed that tigers would be virtually

extinct<http://forests.org/archived_site/today/recent/1995/tiger2.htm>in

the wild by 1999 " unless India and the other range states declare open

war on poachers and illegal traders " .

 

The survival of the tiger has been the subject of countless conservation

campaigns, public appeals and militarised anti-poaching activities. In 1994,

even the cuddly WWF <http://www.wwf.org.uk/core/about/aboutwwf.asp> used the

slogan in its recruitment campaign: " He's destroying his own rainforest. To

stop him do you send in the army or an anthropologist? " Tigers are protected

by international law through the Convention on International Trade in

Endangered Species <http://www.cites.org/> (CITES). It provides for a total

prohibition on hunting and trade in tiger parts.

 

Yet, India's policy of isolating wildlife in reserves, curtailing human

activity, and demanding further prohibitions on hunting and trade is simply

not working. numbers of wild tigers have declined markedly to less than

1,400. Whether for food, fashion or medicine, demand for tigers and tiger

parts has not declined but steadily increased.

 

India should adopt the Chinese approach. Numbers of wild tigers in China

have also declined but the numbers of tigers bred in captivity, in the 14

registered tiger farms <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6750349.stm> has

increased. There are more than 5,000 tigers in captivity in China. Plans are

under way to log the genetic profile of all the tigers held so that the

numbers of pure subspecies can be documented and increased. This will aid

the breeding of some of the rare subspecies such as the Bengal and Siberian

tigers.

 

The cost of these centres is very high, and not helped by the 14-year ban on

domestic and international trade in tigers, enforced by CITES. However if

the tigers were bred for

market<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-441632/The-factory-farm-tigers-tu\

rned-wine.html>,

for their parts as well as for sale to zoos and circuses, these enterprises

would become self-sufficient. It could also have the effect of undercutting

the illegal trade in tiger parts by supplying a steady stream to the market.

 

Tiger stir-fry and tiger-blood wine may not be on everyone's menu. Most of

us would not know what to do with a tiger penis if it flopped in front of

us. However, the Chinese are already using some of the revenue from these

farms to re-introduce tigers back into the wild in South Africa, and are

planning the same for a designated reserve in China.

 

Maybe this free market will destroy the tiger of William Blake's

imagination<http://www.bartleby.com/101/489.html>.

Its majesty as a predator is lost in circuses and zoos (if animal rights

activists haven't banned them yet). It will not burn bright in tiger farms.

Nevertheless, the commercial farming of tigers and captive breeding

programmes should be taken seriously, until the next Green Revolution in

agriculture, when less land is needed for food, and indigenous people are

truly living, and not just surviving on subsistence agriculture. We can then

set aside land for tigers.

 

We can romanticise the tiger if we wish, but we should re-enchant ourselves

with humanity. If we are so intent on saving the tiger then I'd propose

farms for tigers and not prisons for indigenous people.