New Delhi: There could be many more Sariskas in the making -and this is of- ficial. If tourism could see tigers loping away from Rajasthan's famous Ranthambore reserve, "extremist-engineered disturbances" have taken an un- accounted toll on five other reserves. India is supposed to have about 3,500 tigers but nobody believes the figure, just as nobody is quite sure of the scale of poaching. Over the past year or so, Project Tiger officials have been mapping traditional tiger ranges across the country to detail the changes and strategise accordingly This is an attempt to put manage- ment on a scientific footing -unstated acknowledgement that it hasn't been so far.
As the PM will hear at an upcoming National Board for Wildlife meeting, the traditional range has been mapped on the basis of literature references. Then, they have gone down to the taluka level for actual sightings. They find the habitat is fragmented but the Terai, Western Ghats and central India are still not 'too bad'.
The Centre has set up a monitoring panel of 10 non-governmental experts ' \to visit each of 28 reserves to report back on 50 points such as the pressures, habitation, each reserve's management plan and staff positions. Each reserve is expected to maintain a register of all sightings in and outside reserves. States, however, are the decisive , factor in every reserve. When the next tiger census begins November, the ministry plans to get in external auditors to fIll the credibility gap.
Environment secretary Prodipto Ghosh r says the pugmark-related method is in i ternationally accepted but they are coming up with an enhanced methodology , for a more complete enumeration of .tigers, the ecological and prey base,
What is clear is that there are no easy Gopal says the tourist crush at Ranth- ambore has pushed out tigers to villages nearby and animals have been sighted I close to the Chambal ravines. At least one person's death has been reported.
In the Valmiki reserve, a disputed area has seen Nepalese extremists lording it there. Four years ago, tiger reserve staff which reportedly hadn't been paid salaries for nearly 16-18 months just walked out in protest one day Army patrolling has reportedly been sought there.
Other reserves in the problem list are Indravati in Chhattisgarh, Manas in Assam, Nagarjuna Sagar in Andhra and Palamau in Jharkhand. "Some reserves are so disturbed you can forget about the tiger," says additional DG (wildlife) R P S Katwal. Law and order is just a piece of the puzzle. A deadly cocktail has been brewing in reserves as the territorially-possessive tiger loses its range, cattle and humans trample ground in disregard of , its right to privacy; poachers make merry and governments go slow on filling up thousands of vacancies of forest guards the ill-armed men who are actually supposed to be a protective cover: It's now an ageing force.
Somewhere in between, officials and conservationists say officialdom has lost touch with the locals, who are best informed about the movements of both I animals and poachers.
