(IN) World Bank loan to India for saving tigers

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Flora__Fauna/World_Bank_offers_India_loan_to_\

save_tigers/articleshow/3084014.cms

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*World Bank offers India loan to save tigers

*30 May 2008, 0038 hrs IST,Nitin Sethi,TNN

 

NEW DELHI: Every agency wants to jump on to the 'tiger crisis' bandwagon.

Now the World Bank has 'asked' the Indian government to put in a 'formal

request' to it for a loan to save the tigers. It believes that announcing

the news of Indian government's proposal could be used to increase the

'visibility' of the " Signature Tiger Event " it is organizing in Washington

on June 9, where it plans to rope in celebrities from Hollywood and

Bollywood.

 

The Bank wants to use the event to launch its own programme with

tiger-bearing countries to save the striped cat in tandem with governments,

corporates and NGOs.

 

But the proposal from the World Bank has drawn flak from prominent Indian

conservationists and scientists. Valmik Thapar, the prominent tiger

conservationist, and Ullas Karanth, world's foremost tiger scientist, have

slammed the proposal demanding that the Bank should first admit to the

damage caused by development and wildlife conservation projects it has

supported before offering India money.

 

Their demand comes especially in the wake of the $60 million eco-development

project in some prominent wildlife national parks between 1996 and 2004. The

project ran into a huge controversy with the Karnataka high court appointed

Lokayukta pointing out huge bungling in funds in the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve

as well as illegal chopping of thousands of trees during its implementation.

The project had to be finally abandoned half way in Nagarhole.

 

There is more to the Bank move that has irked the duo. While the US-based

Smithsonian National Zoological Park, which is partnering the Bank on the

issue, had been asking it for advise on how to go about on a proposal on

which the Bank would work, the lending institution went ahead without

waiting for completion of deliberations and 'asked' the Indian government to

'request' it for a loan and even suggested a conceptual framework for it.

 

The Bank's proposal, the tiger experts here have said in correspondence to

the Smithsonian officials, " reeks of arrogance " , " learns nothing from the

past " and " boasts of (its non-existent) past success " in tiger conservation.

They point out that the new proposal is similar to the failed, earlier

eco-development project.