A shorter version of the article appended below appeared as an editorial in the April 23^rd issue of Economic and Political Weekly under the title ‘Protecting India’s Protected Areas’. Here is a link to the EPW version: http://www.epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/15969.pdf

Whose forest is it anyway?

Praveen Bhargav and Shekar Dattatri

The Saxena Committee’s recipe for redressing historic injustices to forest dwellers will precipitate an ecological crisis.

While there has been a huge uproar over the auctioning of the 2G spectrum at throwaway prices to private corporations, a far more valuable asset of the nation, biodiversity, is to be handed over to thousands of Grama Sabhas for virtually unregulated and limitless exploitation. This is one of the key recommendations of the Saxena Committee, which was tasked with suggesting ways to strengthen the implementation of The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA).

The FRA, which was enacted during UPA 1, continues to be the subject of fierce debate. On one hand are those who insist that millions of forest dwellers should be allowed to exploit all forests, including Protected Areas (PAs) such as National Parks and Sanctuaries, for their livelihood; and, on the other, those who argue, on the basis of empirical and scientific evidence, that extractive exploitation within our small PAs cannot be ecologically sustainable at current human population densities, especially when linked to national and international markets.

Of deep concern are two drastic measures recommended by the committee. First, it proposes democratization of forest governance by dismantling state protection and progressively handing over the management of India’s forests to Grama Sabhas. Second, it favours adoption of market-friendly policies and de-regulation of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) to facilitate their trade. The majority opinion of the Committee appears to be that local stakeholders will have the innate wisdom and restraint to ‘sustainably’ exploit forest products while ensuring the preservation of natural ecosystems and endangered species.

Reality check

The troubling fact about this politically correct ‘sustainable use of forests’ theory is that no one knows exactly how much resource extraction is ecologically sustainable. While it is imperative that we redress injustices done to impoverished forest dwellers, it is vital that we do not perpetuate injustices to wildlife, which do not have either a voice or a vote. Today, India’ s National Parks and Sanctuaries are the last refuges where endangered species have some degree of security. Rampant, market-driven exploitation of forest products in these ecologically sensitive hotspots of biodiversity can adversely affect the delicate balance of nature. A tiger that requires 3000 kg of live prey a year needs a healthy herbivore population for its survival, which is only possible in a healthy habitat; an adult elephant needs about 250 kg of fodder a day to fill its cavernous stomach. What level of human extraction of forest products is ‘sustainable’ to these species?

Scientific studies have shown that most species of large wildlife decline and disappear when they have to compete with high-density human populations. Even in the vast forests of the Amazon, human-wildlife coexistence works only where traditional forest dwellers live at low densities with no links to outside markets. In the Indian context, where forests have shrunk drastically, and turned into tiny islands amidst a sea of humanity, it would be suicidal to dismantle State protection for our Protected Areas.

It is well documented that the forests of India’s North-East, which have largely been under the control of autonomous tribal councils, are suffering from severe faunal impoverishment, also known as the ‘empty forest syndrome’. As starkly revealed in the documentary film, ‘The Wild Meat Trail’, by Rita Banerjee and Shilpi Sharma, many tribal communities that have enough cultivable land and livestock to meet their nutritional needs, are relentlessly exterminating wildlife from their community forests by shooting, trapping, and snaring every creature, from the smallest to the largest, for cash; the majority of this illegal wild meat is sold in local markets that cater to consumers from neighbouring towns and villages, for whom wildlife meat is a delicacy.

In contrast, many wildlife reserves across the country, where the protectionist paradigm has been in place since the 70s, such as Corbett, Kanha, Kaziranga and Bandipur, support some of the highest wildlife densities in the world. This is not to say that all is well with the system of forest management in India. The tiger extinctions in Sariska and Panna, and many other failures, leave us in no doubt that forest governance is in dire need of sweeping reforms and a change in authoritarian mindsets. But the remedies proposed by the Saxena Committee may end up being worse than the maladies it is ostensibly setting out to cure.

Today there are about 600 Protected Areas in India - an impressive sounding figure, until you realize that all these put together constitute just around 3-4 % of our total land area. Yet, this tiny proportion of our country holds the key to the survival of its billion people. Our mountains, rivers, wetlands and, above all, forests, provide innumerable ecosystem services that we take for granted, but without which life, or economic progress, would be virtually impossible. These are irreplaceable ecological treasures that must be regarded as sacrosanct.

Granting land and community rights even within Protected Areas to growing populations of forest dwellers engaged in raising crops and livestock, and commercial collection of forest products for insatiable markets, is a retrograde step. It is a matter of record that since India’s independence, vast areas of wildlife-rich grasslands and wooded areas under the control of local communities have been decimated. While the consequences of mining and dams in forested landscapes are clearly visible, the insidious destruction caused by millions of people extracting forest products remains largely unseen. The truth is, this is like a cancer that is eating away our forests from within.

Policy Imperatives

Earlier high-level committees and Government bodies, including the Tiger Task Force, the National Wildlife Action Plan, National Forest Commission, National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, the Elephant Task Force, the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India, have all pointed out the need for retaining up to 4 percent of India free from incompatible human uses to sustain and strengthen biodiversity conservation. This provides a reasonable ‘common minimum agenda’ to secure some critical landscapes that have already been identified by these expert committees on the basis of scientific data. With a planetary ecological crisis looming, only wise stewardship of our natural ecosystems can buffer India from the impacts of climate change. Biodiversity conservation is not a luxury but a vital necessity.

It is therefore imperative that we insulate at least the 3- 4 % of India comprising PAs from all incompatible and extractive uses, while allowing scientifically monitored multiple use of other categories of forests. Equally important, we must redress past injustices to forest dwellers through forward-looking policies that will enable many to join the mainstream and improve their own lives and those of their children. It is a sorry testament to land reforms and governance that we are still advocating apportioning forestland to people in an ad hoc manner, despite the fact that this will not solve any of their problems in the long run. Such a ‘solution’ may assuage our middle class guilt, but will it really help either forest dwellers or the nation? What will happen when, a few decades hence, human populations inside forests have increased, resources have been depleted and habitats have been degraded beyond redemption?

What forest dwellers require is not a marginal improvement of their status quo but a set of proactive solutions that will provide real emancipation; such as fair resettlement outside Protected Areas, education, micro finance, vocational training and new livelihood options that can get them out of their dependence on forests.

Social justice, development and conservation are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It is a matter of setting the right priorities and long-term goals – where to develop, where to conserve and how to deliver social justice. It is possible to achieve all three goals, but only if we dispassionately analyze policies that have succeeded and further strengthen them on the basis of the best ecological and social science.

Handing over our national ecological assets to untested and legally non-accountable Grama Sabhas in the hope that they will nurture them is a utopian gamble that we can ill afford. Such a move, and the unregulated exploitation that will follow, will wipe away all the hard earned conservation gains of the past few decades and severely endanger India’s ecological security. Instead of trying to turn the clock back on the historic injustices perpetrated by the British on forest dwelling communities, the government must leapfrog ahead and take innovative decisions that are rooted in the realities of modern India.

(The writers were members of the National Board for Wildlife from 2007 to 2010).

To save the tiger, revamp the system

From the Editorial page of The Hindu, June 20, 2007
To save the tiger, revamp the system

Shekar Dattatri

SET UP BY THE BRITISH RAJ TO EXPLOIT VAST TIMBER RESOURCES, INDIA'S FOREST SERVICE NEEDS TO REINVENT ITSELF IF THE TIGER IS TO BE SAVED.

WHEN THE Prime Minister set up the Tiger Task Force two years ago, there were high hopes that sorely needed reforms would finally be initiated in the way our tiger reserves and other protected areas are managed. Unfortunately, there has been little action on the ground, and the fate of the tiger has become more precarious. Even so, it is not too late to save our national animal. What it requires is the discarding of old mindsets, and the ushering in of a new spirit of transparency and determination. India’s conservation record during the last decade has been appalling, and unless there are some fundamental reforms in the functioning of the Ministry of Environment and Forests in Delhi, and the Forest Departments in the States, it is hard to see how things can improve. It is time for these agencies to shed their autocratic style of functioning and take the people of the country into confidence.

From a biological standpoint, there is no reason for the Indian tiger to go extinct, for it is a species that can thrive in an extraordinary range of habitats — from the cool foothills of the Himalayas, to the hot and arid forests of Rajasthan; from the forested mountain slopes of the Western Ghats to the steamy mangroves of the Sunderbans. Add to this the other factor in the tiger’s favour: it’s a prolific breeder. A female can start breeding at the age of three and can raise several litters of three to four cubs in her lifetime. To save the species, all that we need to do is ensure protection of its habitat, and control the poaching of not just the tiger but also its prey. This should not be difficult, given that most of the important tiger habitats in India are already in the protected area network. The problem is that the missionary zeal with which Project Tiger was implemented in its early years has given way to complacency and indifference, both at the political and administrative levels. When India was hit by a surging demand for tiger skins, bones, and body parts from China and elsewhere, protection in all but a handful of tiger reserves had deteriorated to an extent where poachers could simply walk in, establish camps in the jungle, and systematically trap tigers. When confronted with evidence, the government machinery responded time and again with denial and dithering. Instead of coming down on poachers, officials invariably took the easier step of penalizing the messengers — scientists and NGOs — by withholding research permits and foisting false cases.

At the same time, tigers were conjured out of thin air using the notoriously unreliable pug mark method of counting the animals. Ignoring reliable scientific methods that have been developed, highly inflated figures were put out year after year, painting a patently false picture. It took the total extinction of tigers in Sariska for this charade to be widely exposed. The damage caused has been enormous, and it is now emerging that many more reserves may have lost most of their tigers. Had there been a better, more transparent system in place, corrective action could have been taken earlier. Sadly, few of those responsible have been taken to task, and most continue in their jobs with impunity.

To make matters worse for the tiger, a concept called eco-development emerged in the 1990s ostensibly to wean away villages exerting pressure on forests by providing them with socio-economic services. Funded by international agencies such as the World Bank, vast sums of money are pumped into ill-conceived schemes that produce little or no tangible benefit for the parks or the tigers. In fact, the opposite has been true in many cases, where these ‘lucrative’ projects have diverted the attention of park managers away from their primary job of wildlife protection, leaving the field wide open to poachers. Under these schemes, the very park managers who should be resisting unnecessary development in the wilderness are put in charge of, and encouraged to go on, development sprees that have nothing ‘eco’ about them. The result has often been new roads that fragment fragile habitats, new rest houses where none are needed, and the haphazard distribution of sops to outlying villages. Meanwhile, the ‘jawans’ of the forest, the humble but crucially important forest guards, continue to languish without adequate facilities and pay. Despite the huge sums of money available under eco-development budgets, only a very small percentage is actually allocated to protection, equipment, and staff welfare. It often still falls to NGOs to provide succor to the guards, in the form of uniforms, boots, wireless equipment, and even insurance.

Today, except in a handful of reserves, our protection system is in tatters. Thousands of posts of forest guard remain vacant in all the States, leaving our treasure troves of biodiversity open round the clock to looters. Most of the guards are in their Fifties, and lack the stamina required for this tough job. Compounding this is a huge crisis of leadership. Barring some exceptions, most forest officers have no expertise in anti-poaching operations and little inclination to lead their men in the field. The poachers, on the other hand, have become ever more organized and sophisticated, operating with code names, communicating with cell phones, and retaining top lawyers for their defense.

If some parks still hold tigers in good numbers, it is because of protection systems that were established and institutionalized by visionary officers in the past, and continued by a few dedicated individuals. These officers too usually have a frustrating time, trapped in a system that offers little encouragement or support to those who toil with sincerity. As a ‘reward’ for their exemplary service, they can expect to be shunted to some useless post during the next round of transfers and, often, have all their good work undone by an indifferent successor.

The way forward

In this era of increasing pressures of every kind, a few dedicated officers here and there are not enough to stem the rot that has set in over decades. To save what is left, we need a radical revamp of the old system, starting with a separate ‘Wildlife Cadre,’ which only recruits those who want to work for the cause of conservation. For decades we have had an unfortunate system where officials are randomly reshuffled across disciplines, commonly resulting in situations where an officer who has expertise primarily in raising eucalyptus plantations is posted as warden at a wildlife sanctuary or vice versa. And, forest guards are rarely recruited from forest-dwelling communities who know the terrain intimately. In fact, they are actively filtered out through archaic rules that stipulate certain educational qualifications or height requirements for the job. Most damaging of all is the very attitude of the Forest Service, which is that of a feudal landlord. Barring a few enlightened individuals within the system, the culture of the Service is to treat citizens as either supplicants or irritants. Independent scientists or dedicated conservation organisations that have developed an expertise in various aspects of conservation are rarely consulted while drawing up management plans of sanctuaries and tiger reserves, and their access to the forests is tightly controlled.

While many government departments have reinvented themselves during the last few years, the Ministry of Environment and Forests in Delhi and the Forest Departments of the States remain deeply entrenched in an authoritarian mindset, and are distrusted by virtually all sections of society that have to deal with them. It is imperative that senior officers wake up to this reality and give their institutions a much-needed makeover. It is not only the fate of tiger that they hold in their hands, but the ecological health of the entire nation. This is a sacred responsibility that must be discharged with great diligence.

Given the urgency of our present situation, we cannot afford to leave matters as they are. India’s incredible forest and wildlife wealth deserves to be managed by progressive and well-trained professionals who truly care. Our protection systems must be revitalized, and funds that are at present squandered away on needless ‘developmental’ activities must be re-allocated to where it really counts.

Saving the tiger is not merely about saving a charismatic national icon. The tiger is the lynchpin that holds the ecological apple cart of the country together. If we allow it to go extinct, it will be the beginning of the end for our entire wild heritage, in addition to our water and food security. The tiger and its habitat received a fresh lease of life when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi established Project Tiger more than 30 years ago. Today, conservation needs another shot in the arm from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

(The writer is a wildlife filmmaker and conservationist.)