NEW DELHI, APRIL 27 : Even before a Parliamentary Standing Committee slammed the Ministry of Environment and Forests on April 22 for failing to check growing incidences of poaching, Jyotiraditya Scindia, sensed the urgency for an action plan. He and 10 other MPs have joined hands to set up a forum that seeks immediate steps to protect tigers during the monsoons in ten troubled tiger reserves across India.
The parliamentarian forum, called ‘‘Tiger and Wilderness Watch’’, comprises Jyotiraditya, Rahul Gandhi, Renuka Chowdhury, B J Panda, Suresh Prabhu, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Anand Sharma, Manvendra Singh, Natwar Singh, Karan Singh and VP Singh Badnore.
Today, seven MPs of the forum met Environment Minister A Raja and demanded deployment of additional forces for 10 tiger reserves before the onset of the monsoon, when poachers are most active.
‘‘The Minister has assured us that he will get back with an action plan on these 10 reserves within four weeks. Our forum will also meet the Prime Minister in the next couple of days. We are in the process of outlining a charter with both short-term and long-term goals,’’ Scindia told The Indian Express. Asked if the forum will take up the issue of the draft tribal land rights bill that has drawn flak from environmentalists, he said the forum’s immediate focus was to protect the tigers during the monsoon. ‘‘In future, we will also take up other conservation issues, including the impact of the draft tribal land rights bill,’’ he assured.
Said Congress MP Anand Sharma, ‘‘We were concerned by all reports about declining number of tigers. This is an action-oriented group; we have made concrete suggestions.’’
The troubled zones identified by the forum are Manas Tiger Reserve (Assam), Namdapha Tiger Reserve (Arunachal Pradesh), Simlipal Tiger Reserve (Orissa), Valmiki Tiger Reserve (Bihar), Palamau Tiger Reserve (Jharkhand), Nagarjuna Tiger Reserve (Andhra Pradesh), Indravati Tiger Reserve (Chhattisgarh), Panna Tiger Reserve (Madhya Pradesh), Pench Tiger Reserve (Madhya Pradesh), and Tadoba Tiger Reserve (Maharashtra).
The forum, which has held a meeting with tiger experts, will also formally requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for deployment of additional forces in the ten reserves. Seeking Central funds for the additional forces, in case the states can’t afford, the forum sought ‘‘immediate action prior to the onset of monsoon, when poachers are most active’’. The forum wants the Prime Minister to convene a meeting of the Chief Ministers of the states where the troubled tiger reserves have been identified. It also plans a separate one-on-one meeting with these Chief Ministers.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the Environment Minister briefed the action group on the interim findings of a panel of experts and independent monitors — set up by Project Tiger in July 2004. Said Project Tiger Director Rajesh Gopal: ‘‘A meeting of Field Directors of all tiger reserves and Chief Wildlife Wardens of all states is being convened in early May. We will invite these parliamentarians so that they can directly interact with the officials.’’
As for the current state of affairs, the remarks of the Parliament Standing Committee on Science, Technology and Forests says it all. In its report, tabled in Parliament on April 22, the committee said — after noting the reply of the MoEF — it is ‘‘strongly of the opinion that the Ministry’s efforts have in no way improved the Project Tiger and the management of tiger parks in the country as reflected in increased incidences of poaching and disappearance of a section of wild cats from strategic areas of the country’’.
Shocked at the sorry state of Sariska Tiger Reserve, the report notes, ‘‘condition of most tiger parks are more or less the same’’. It recommends that ‘‘the Ministry needs to undertake complete review of its programmes and plug loopholes wherever necessary...’’
US lawmakers to examine decline of Indian tiger population
WASHINGTON: US lawmakers and funding agencies such as Save The Tiger Fund, have decided to launch a bipartisan effort to examine reasons for the decline. During a hearing on Tuesday on re-authorisation of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, democrat congressman Frank Pallone raised the issue of recent reports about potential corruption and scandal in international efforts to conserve tigers in India and the revelation that tiger populations are much smaller than previously thought. Pallone received commitments from both John Berry, executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Matt Hogan, acting director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the tiger fund that they would investigate the problem.
