During 2005 to 2011 in Chandrapur district alone, there were 103 cases of tiger attacks, including 65 human deaths. A high number of tigers were suspected to be killed by poachers using traps, poisoning or electrocution. A common fact running through all these episodes is that almost all these incidences were outside the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR).

It would be a daunting task to protect these tigers given the environment in which they have managed to survive. Apart from the immediate contiguous forests of Tadoba as it is popularly known as, these tigers are living in fragmented corridors and human dominated landscapes. But the fact that tigers are still breeding is a clear indication that to a significant extent these forests still retain their ecological identity.

Hence, given such odds, how does one go about protecting these tigers?

The fact remains that there is hardly any policy in place that is concerned with wildlife outside the protected areas, and these are the thousands of square kilometres and not just the immediate fringes of the reserves now recognized as 'buffer zones'. The thinking and attitude among the lawmakers as well as the wildlife research fraternity are that focusing management efforts and resources on the protected areas, the repositories of the vital 'gene pools', is what really matters. The other ('lesser') tigers form the 'sink' populations which are not likely to survive in the long run, and, hence are dispensable.

With declaration of buffer zones, the conservation efforts will now extend to the tigers of the fringe forests, but the populations away from the notified buffer zones are still left in the lurch. But, in the present scenario with the diminishing numbers of tigers, it's difficult to agree with this line of thought.

Firstly, are these tigers living in the forests outside the protected areas really different from the tigers within? Tiger do not recognize boundaries - their home ranges cover protected and unprotected areas. Then it makes little sense if the same individual enjoys protection when it is within and is left to fend for itself as a 'lesser tiger' the moment he steps beyond the boundary. Are we hamstrung by a system which allows protection only within the demarcated area or should we have a system that is tailored to protecting wildlife over its entire range? There have been occasions when officers concerned have heaved a sigh of relief because the dead tiger lay a few metres beyond their area of command.

Secondly, are these tigers really isolated from the main populations? Many of the old corridors still survive in good forest patches connected by degraded areas along farms and villages. As the results of the recent telemetry done by Dr Vidya Athreya show, tigers are capable of travelling across such landscapes. Besides, there are no studies done as yet to establish if these tigers are genetically isolated from their cousins in the core areas.

Thirdly, to a wildlife manger, every tiger matters, wherever and however it may exist. This is also the mandate given to him by the Wildlife Act, and what the citizens expect him to do.

Poaching of tigers in this landscape areas has brought Tadoba in focus. There is little realization that these tigers may not have been poached within the tiger reserve, but these unfortunate individuals were having a home range with their biological and territorial imperatives requiring them to shunt between the protected and non protected areas. Thus they are very much a part of the gene pool that everyone is concerned about.

The buffer, the adjoining corridors and the other peripheral forests still do not have a wildlife management plan and hence there is no protection strategy in place. Therefore these 'lesser' tigers may soon be on the verge of disappearance unless some urgent pre-emptive action is taken to save them. The argument that disappearance of these tigers will have no effect on the core tiger gene pool is thus not a valid one.

I believe that no strategy or programme to protect and conserve tigers will prove to be effective if it only focuses on the reserves and their immediate fringes, particularly for Vidarbha where a very substantial part of the tiger population is surviving and breeding outside. There is an urgent need to encompass these 'lesser' tigers within an effective management system and to integrate them in the current policy and programmes of wildlife management.

Today the major constraint of protecting these tigers outside is the poor knowledge and capacity of the ground staff when it comes to managing wildlife.

To begin with, all such Beats where the tiger's presence is marked should be identified as sensitive. The population estimation data from the census exercises, besides giving an estimate of the tiger population, should also identify the spatial distribution of the tigers right down to the Beats followed by a system of monitoring tiger movements at the beat level. This will primarily require capacity building among the Beat guards manning these sensitive areas. The random camera trapping being done by these guards has other than empowering them with a tool been just a gamut of pictures of tigers and cubs which now needs to be collated, analysed to function as a data base for referencing.

At the height of the incidences of tiger attacks in the Chandrapur district during 2008, the forest department, with the help of Tiger Research and Conservation Trust had started the Corridor Conservation Program of capacity building of the ground staff, focusing on identifying signs of the tiger's presence and mapping it using the Global Positioning System (GPS). It also included communicating alerts of a tiger's presence to the villagers and sensitizing these locals about their code of conduct.

Such capacity building along with that for anti poaching activities will need to continue along with a clearly stated policy that in these sensitive Beats wildlife protection will take precedence over forestry works like plantations, timber, bamboo or tendu extraction. All water holes in each such Beat need to be shown in the Beat map, so also location of power lines, which need to be rigidly monitored for tapping.

Once these carnivore-present Beats, mostly contiguous with their rounds and ranges-tagged 'sensitive' are identified, senior field officers and above should be also made accountable for overseeing monitoring by the Beat guard. The mantra would be to be aware of the tiger's presence in the Beat and thus pre-empt its possible attack on men and cattle and to checkmate the poachers.

Tourism in these areas will serve as alternative destinations for sighting tigers. With certain basic ground rules in place, tourists may be allowed to sit on a machaan or drive with spot lights. Cattle kills can be optimized as the monetary returns to locals from tourists will eliminate the tendency of the villagers to remove the cattle carcass (they often poison it too). The most obvious fall out would be an incentive to keep a strict watch on these tigers by a host of stake holders.

TRACT, with the staff of the Moharli range in Tadoba, had monitored the movements of a tigress with cubs outside the reserve around the Erai reservoir for more than 16 months. Daily monitoring of indirect signs or direct sightings, awareness among the local communities resulted in the tigress family of five being seen by hundreds of tourists on the road leading to the Moharli gate, till the time the cubs separated from their mother.

This experience eloquently brought out the fact that peripheral forests having a fairly good population of wild prey can support a family of tigers, with daily monitoring ensuring that there were no conflicts and poaching. No collaring or handling of the tigers was required. The simple prescription is basic foot patrolling and monitoring of threats by involving the local NGO, village forest protection committees, helped by trained Beat Guards.

The question remains: Is the Maharashtra forest department prepared to accept and face the biggest challenge of wildlife management of the moment - to protect the tigers once they are outside the protected areas? These 'lesser' tigers are now on a short fuse, as they try to win in the game of survival and breeding under increasingly adverse conditions. And if we lose them, we may end up losing the so called protected ones too. They are one and the same.

(The writer is the founder trustee and secretary of the Tiger Research and Foundation Trust, an organization involved in the conservation of the tiger and its habitat, since 2001)