Project Tiger: How India has kept the tiger alive

"That it has kept the tiger alive..."

Wide-eyed and unflinching, Bittu Sahgal doesn't hesitate when asked about Project Tiger's achievements. "Had it not been for Project Tiger, the tiger would have been the first large mammal on earth to have disappeared," says the environmental activist and founder-editor of Sanctuary Asia.

Sahgal isn't exaggerating. The decline has been swift. The world has seen the population of individual wild tigers dwindle from 100,000 in 1913 to just about 3,200 now. Classified into six species, a majority of these surviving cats belong to the specie panthera tigris tigris, more popularly known as the Bengal tiger, that are found in India. Here too, their population, estimated to be between 20,000-40,000 at the turn of the 20th century, reduced to fewer than 2,000 by the 1970s, mostly due to hunting and poaching. It has now inched to 2,226.

Were it not for a man named Kailash Sankhala, perhaps the only place the tiger would have inhabited would have been our imaginations. It was in large part due to Sankhala's research on tigers that prime minister Indira Gandhi set up Project Tiger in 1973. The initiative, funded directly by the centre through the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, worked in sync with state governments and local forest departments to protect the big cat.

Forest-first approach

Perched at the top of the food chain, the tiger is an apex predator, feeding on omnivores and herbivores that thrive in a forest. "Sankhala often said that the tiger is a metaphor for all of nature," recalls Sahgal. "While some people said 'Let's save the most number of tigers in one place', Sankhala said, 'Let's save them in nine different places, in nine different habitats.' This formed the core philosophy of Project Tiger."

And so, starting with Palamau Tiger Reserve in Betla National Park (now in Jharkhand), nine tiger reserves were chalked out in the initial years. "Tiger reserves are constituted on a core/buffer strategy," explains Bishan Singh Bonal, who heads Project Tiger now and is the member-secretary of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Core areas, meant as exclusive tiger zones, have the legal status of a national park, whereas the buffer zone is typically a mix of forest and non-forest land.

The demarcation of tiger reserves was backed by ground initiatives such as relocating villages that were in core areas and compensating the villagers, training forest guards, making amendments to the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and signing agreements with neighbouring countries. The last decade witnessed a leap in conservation measures. As a result, camera traps have been deployed for better monitoring and a database is in the works to allot photo IDs to individual tigers and ensure better on-field protection by a Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF). There have been other measures such as establishing operating procedures for anti-poaching activities, increased compensation in the event of man-animal conflict, etc.

The number of tiger reserves too has gone up to 48 across 18 states, or "around 2.12 per cent of the geographical area of our country", Bonal points out. India is now home to an estimated 2,226 individual tigers – nearly 70 per cent of the world's striped cat population (See table, 'Striped stats'). "Project Tiger has put the endangered tiger on an assured path to recovery," adds Dr Rajesh Gopal, former head of NTCA and current secretary general of Global Tiger Forum. "Tiger conservation has conserved the entire gamut of the ecosystem."

Spoils of war

The tiger's road to recovery in India has not been without tragic consequences. Poaching and habitat loss are threats the tigers and their protectors face on a day-to-day basis. Reams have been written about how poachers emptied the tiger reserves of Sariska (Rajasthan) and Panna (Madhya Pradesh) off the big cat by 2005 and by 2008, respectively. The poachers of Panna, it has been reported, have since turned to diamond smuggling, further looting the forest. The deaths of 200 tigers in Sariska alone have been attributed to trader Sansarchand and poacher Juhru.

Forest guards – on whom lie the onus of safeguarding the forest and its fauna – are not necessarily equipped to deal with front line rigours. "Very often, the forest staff don't know how to collect evidence, investigate a crime scene or prepare documents to be submitted in court for trial of poaching cases," says Anjana Gosain, lawyer and CEO of Tiger Trust, which Sankhala set up after retiring from Project Tiger.

In the last 15 years, the Trust has trained 1,500 forest staff across five states in legal and technical expertise. "Poaching cases drag on for years in courts and even if the guards are called as witnesses, it may still take a lot of time before a conviction is announced. Besides, while their counterparts in the IAS and IFS climb the ladder quickly, forest guards move up the ladder after years of service and many transfers. This has a direct impact on their motivation at the ground level and during court trials."

Gosain recalls an incident from a few years ago that highlights the many interlinked issues that need to be managed for tiger conservation. A case has been dragging in courts about locals from a village around Ranthambore National Park poisoning two cubs because they had eaten a goat. "Ranthambore has more tigers than can be supported by the habitat," says Gosain. "The cubs had strayed because of this shrinkage."

Ranthambore is estimated to have between 32-42 tigers in an area of 884sqkm, according to the Status of Tigers in India, 2014 report by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). And such instances of 'revenge killing' are emblematic of the very nature of man-human conflict. Factor this: in 2006, India had 1,411 tigers in a 93,697sqkm area, according to the same report. By 2014, there were 2,226 tigers roaming across 92,164sqkm. The number of tigers had increased, but their habitat had shrunk.

WII's Dr YV Jhala, one of the report's three authors, points out a nuance. "Although comparatively, tiger habitat may have shrunk, a majority of our tigers densely fill an area of about 30,000sqkm," says the wildlife biologist. "This leaves enough room for more tigers in the existing habitat, explaining why even though habitat has shrunk, the number of tigers has increased."

Corridor connection
The tussle between infrastructure and conservation has traditionally been won by the former. Sahgal recalls how in the 1980s when Project Tiger was doing very well, everyone from politicians and corporates to middlemen wanted to axe forests for personal gains.

The threats facing the tiger, as Dr Gopal lists, include the overuse of forests outside reserves and the perpetual demand for infrastructure. Bonal of Project Tiger agrees that the biggest challenge is the need to strike a balance "between conservation and infrastructure development in the context of tiger reserves and its corridors".

A case in point is the proposed four-laning of the two-lane NH7 between Kanha and Pench tiger reserves on the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh border. This is amongst the best and the most important tiger 'corridors' in the country. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has opposed WII's proposal to build an underpass and an overbridge along the Seoni-Khawasa stretch as it goes about widening NH7. An underpass will allow free movement of tigers and other animals from one habitat to another. This is important because from the time they turn two-to-three, juvenile tigers are on the move, looking for territory to call their own and spreading their genes in the process.

"Lack of gene flow would insularise our tiger populations, which is not desirable for their long-term survival," shares Dr Gopal. "So we need to focus on the landscape and on tiger corridors."

For Bittu Sahgal, saving the tiger is about saving the forest, and saving the forest takes precedence over all else – roads, dams and development. He says, "The best habitat for the tiger is the human heart. If there's no place in the human heart, there's no place physically for the tiger."

Tiger trivia
Tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are renowned for their power and strength
The tiger is capable of killing animals over twice its size. It is one of nature's most feared predators
Tigers live alone and aggressively scent-mark large territories (up to 100sq km) to keep their rivals away
The roar of a Bengal tiger can carry for over 2km at night
If a tiger loses its canines (tearing teeth) through injury or old age, it can no longer kill and will likely starve to death
Unlike other cats, tigers are good swimmers and often cool off in lakes and streams during the day
Source: tigerday.org

Striped stats
Tiger population: 1,411 (2006), 1,706 (2010), 2,226 (2014)
Tiger habitat (sqkm): 93,697 (2006), 81,906 (2010), 92,164 (2014)

Tiger populations across the world
Bhutan: 115-150 (including juveniles)
Bangladesh: 359 (Forest Department estimates, 1992)
Cambodia: 200 (Forest Department estimates, 1994)
China: No estimate of wild tigers available
Myanmar: 100-125 (consensus estimate)
Malaysia: 400-500 (rough estimate)
Indonesia: 400 Sumatran tigers in seven reserves, 100 in unprotected areas
North-Korea: Presence of wild tigers
Vietnam: 150 approx.
Laos: NA

India: 1100-1600 (in 2006-2007), 1520-1909 in 2010
Nepal: 96 (adult tigers in 2009)
Thailand: No systematic survey report available
Russia: About 400 (based on track counts and telemetry)
Between 2500 to 3500 wild tigers survive in the world
Source: Project Tiger

If there was one thing you could do to save the tiger, what would it be?
"Secure tiger corridors." —Bishan Singh Bonal, Project Tiger
"Protect habitat from shrinkage, improve skills of forest department and work to get dedicated courts to redress environment crimes." — Angana Gosain, Tiger Trust
"Am already doing that — changing mindsets. For 15 years, we've been going to kids and telling them a one-line story: you can't save the tiger if you don't save its forests. Each child comes bundled with two parents. We reach about a million children – which is not a lot, but it's not little either." — Bittu Sahgal, Sanctuary Asia
"Save the identified tiger corridors!" —Dr Rajesh Gopal, Global Tiger Forum