MPs form forum for tigers

The Tribune , Thursday, May 05, 2005
Correspondent : Vibha Sharma
New Delhi, May 4 Tigers have managed to achieve what would have seemed to be an extraordinary task for human beings. The big cats have been able to generate a consensus among MPs of rival political parties and bring them together on a common platform. For the sake of tigers in the country, MPs from the Congress, the BJP, the Shiv Sena and the BJD have come together in the form of a forum— the Tiger and Wilderness Watch, to save big cats in particular and promote the cause of forests and wildlife in general. Putting rivalries among their respective parties on the backburner for a change, some members of the group that includes Rahul Gandhi, Renuka Chowdhury, B.J. Panda, Suresh Prabhu, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Anand Sharma, Manvendra Singh, besides Karan Singh and Natwar Singh, also got together to meet Minister of Environment and Forests A. Raja recently to voice their concern over much-publicised tiger crisis in the country in the wake of tiger crisis in Sariska. For the present, members of the group, each of whom claims to be passionate about saving the great symbol of national treasure that the tiger is, hope to meet Chief Ministers of states which have tiger reserves and come up with new measures to resolve the problems. The states concerned should identify specific problems and deploy additional force in vulnerable areas prior to the onset of the monsoon, as it is during this period that poachers are most active, they feel. In any case, the forum wants action to prevent poaching in the 10 critical tiger reserves — The Manas Tiger Reserve, Assam, the Namdapha Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, the Simplipal Tiger Reserve, Orissa, the Valmiki Tiger Reserve, Bihar, the Palamau Tiger Reserve, Jharkhand, the Nagarjuna Tiger Reserve, Andhra Pradesh, the Indravati Tiger Reserve, Chattisgarh, the Panna Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, the Pench Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh and the Tadoba Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environment and Forests is planning to convene a meeting of all field Directors of the tiger reserves and the Chief Wildlife Wardens of the states to discuss measures for enhancing the management of tiger reserves in light of the final results of the independent expert monitoring of the reserves, the immediate steps necessary to address the problem of poaching during the monsoon, the implementation of enhanced methodology of tigers census, and other relevant issues.
 
SOURCE : The Tribune, Thursday, May 05, 2005
 


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