Silver lining for tiger population?

New Delhi: Once considered the land of elephants, tigers and snakes, India has been on a shaky wicket as far as its wildlife is concerned.

Guns and poachers have haunted the nation’s forests, though lately it saw a silver lining with the rise in its tiger population.

According to an All India Tiger Estimation (AITE) 2014 study, released last month, the number of tigers has increased by 30 per cent since 2010.

The AITE figures showed the rise in tiger population from 1,706 in 2010 to 2,226 in 2014. Animal activists and environmentalists have described the statistics as “robust and “very good news.”

Valmik Thapar, one of world’s leading tiger experts, who has been working in the field for over four decades, however, emphasised that “the country should be able to sustain it,” and at the same time warned that the tiger population “could go up as sharply as it could come down.”

The government had launched Project Tiger in 1973 and due to concerted efforts; now India boasts the highest number of tigers (70 per cent) in the 13 tiger-range countries.

On an assured path of recovery, it was during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister that forests and wildlife became a crucial part of the agenda. A wildlife lover, she not only banned the export of tiger skin, but in 1970 banned tiger hunting and later brought about the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972.

The setting up of Project Tiger followed soon after.

Thapar said: “In 1980 she brought in the Foreign Conservation Act and created the Department of Environment. She was working towards creating the Environment Protection Act [and] died just before it [came into being]. Subsequently, her son Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded her, piloted it through Parliament and put into practice her plan to create the Ministry of Environment and Forests.”

Sadly, after Rajiv’s death in 1989, the political leadership did not understand the importance of forests in the country and tiger figures started to come down drastically.

“Even though the government figures stated 3,400 tigers in 2005, the head count was not more than 1,800.” Thapar said.

Fortunately, it was in 2005, when then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Sariska Tiger Reserve that poaching of tigers in the sanctuary triggered a national debate. The Centre constituted a five-member task force to suggest ways to strengthen tiger conservation and assessing threats and challenges to the tiger in various reserves.

The environmentalist said, “If we want tigers to live, the forest departments in all states have to be shaken up because the responsibility ultimately lies on them. There is a need for innovative governance and private-public partnership in tiger conservation by involving experts, scientists and non-governmental organisations.”

One of the principal investigators in the estimation of tigers, Y.V. Jhala added, “Any future increase in tiger numbers would depend on how we balance development with conservation, as we need to build more tiger reserves and increase prey base.”

According to Wildlife Protection Society of India, around 923 tigers were killed by poachers between 1994 and 2010 and 40 were killed in 2013. Demand for their body parts for use in traditional medicine in China and East Asian countries remain robust.