"All of us in India should be concerned with the wanton destruction of our indigenous wildlife ... Ratan Tata

THE last few weeks have seen an unexpected deluge of "tiger reports" in the media; reports on the crisis facing the tiger at Sariska, Ranthambhore, Panna, Bandavgarh. Many believe that this might be only the tip of the iceberg.

The Prime Minister expresses serious concern and asks the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate the matter. Their report confirms that the Sariska Tiger Reserve has no more tigers. Other reports tell us that immediate action was being taken. Eight officers, including senior personnel like the Chief Wildlife Warden of the State, have been placed under suspension, and security and patrolling are being intensified; just what the doctor ordered. The door we are being told, is now, firmly bolted. The birds may have flown away, the tigers no longer prowl, and the poachers have already moved elsewhere, but no problem — the door has been bolted.

Nobody has been fooled and if one is around just a bit, there is the sinking realisation that the tiger is not alone in facing serious threat to its existence. The elephant, the turtle, the dolphin, the forests and wetlands; the very air we breathe ... are all under unprecedented threat.

Many of the 100 odd elephant deaths reported in and around the forests of the Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka in the last 10 years have been ascribed to unnatural reasons including poaching and electrocution. In Rajasthan, one of the world's best known wetland's and bird habitats, the Keoladeo Ghana National Park, has been left thirsting for water. In Orissa, nearly 65 endangered Irrawady Dolphins have been killed by the propellers of boats in the Chilka Lake in the last four years, and thousands of Olive Ridley turtles continue to be washed ashore, dead, on the coastline here.

And there's more!

Orissa and Jharkhand could see investments of more than Rs. 2,00,000 crores and at least Rs. 50,000 crores respectively, for projects largely in the mining sector in the coming decade. These will all be in areas that are home to hundreds of tribal communities, areas that are rich in forests and where elephants and tigers still roam. Local communities across the landscape have opposed these projects; sometimes even at the cost of their own lives, like in Kashipur in Orissa where three people were killed in December 2000 in police firing. The Chief Minister of Orissa Navin Patnaik, however, is on record having said that nothing will be allowed to come in the way of the State's development. He means thousands of hectares of mining leases, hundreds of shattered villages and communities, thousands of displaced families, devastated forests, and polluted streams and rivers.

What has happened in Sariska suddenly feels like a harmless prick of a tailor's needle.

Corporate-speak

And other things go merrily along as well, because India is said to be making rapid economic growth, and well on its way to catching up with the west, or China for that matter: double digit growth figures, booming stock markets, the FDI-sation of the economy and the Shanghai-sation of Mumbai — these are now the benchmarks of our progress and development.

In the same Mumbai, a few weeks ago, Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons, joined corporate captains in expressing support to wildlife conservation in the country. "All of us in India," he was quoted as saying, "should be concerned with the wanton destruction of our indigenous wildlife. Tigers and elephants are a part of India's history and heritage. We need to protect these indigenous species from poachers. Our inability to act today will cause this heritage to be lost to us forever." Inspiring words indeed except for the fact that the same group is putting in nearly Rs. 15,000 crores for iron-ore mining, steel production and port construction in Orissa. The port at Dhamra in fact could sign the death knell for the thousands of Olive Ridley turtles that nest on the beaches here every year.

Another prominent signatory to this Mumbai pledge was Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries who is also a part of the recently formed Friends of Kaziranga Forum.

And there's more!

A recent report of the Coimbatore-based Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) has painted, a grimmer (than one can imagine) picture of the wetlands of the country. Almost all the wetlands they studied in 14 States are polluted and each of the nearly 1,500 fish samples analysed from 115 water bodies either had pesticides or heavy metals.

The Sethu-Samudram project in the ecologically sensitive Gulf of Mannar, is being pushed aggressively inspite of serious ecological concerns and without taking into account anything that might have happened in the aftermath of the tsunami of December 2004. Similar is the case of the Chamarajnagar-Satyamangalam-Mettupalayam railway line that will destroy large swathes of the Nilgiri and Satyamangalam forests and drastically disrupt the only contiguous elephant corridor across Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. More than Rs. 25,000 crores are being pushed into the Golden Quadrilateral road project that will run through many critical wildlife habitats and in the North-East, tens of mega dam projects are proposed in areas that again are thickly forested and home to a wide range of threatened wildlife. But these can't be questioned, because those who do are anti-development at best and anti-national at worst.

A tiger reserve without tigers, a unique wetland with neither water nor birds, and beaches that nesting turtles might be forced to abandon. The door it seems, has indeed been bolted!

Let's also not forget that the National Board for Wildlife, the country's apex body, chaired by the Prime Minister himself, met a full 17 months after its last meeting! The Steering Committee of Project Tiger, the apex body in charge of places like Sariska met in April for the first time in two years, well after the present crisis engulfed Sariska! Let's also remember that the same political establishment continues to push for the thousands of crores of development projects, and the same corporate sector is implementing them in the lure of huge profits.

Is anybody really serious about conserving and protecting wildlife?

Something clearly is amiss somewhere!

It is almost like a big farce that each one of us is pulling on the other. We have not realised that the joke's on us, each one of us, on our water, our air, our forests, our wildlife; the very systems without which we would not be. There might now even be a heightened call for the implementation of a more aggressive gun and guard regime for the protection of wildlife. While no one can deny the need for better protection and law enforcement, we have to realise that the crisis before us is a much larger one. What's happened in Sariska is only a blip on the radar, more like a bad dream. It is merely a symptom of a malaise that runs deep.

Be warned — more Sariskas may be lurking around nearby corners — just like a tiger in the forest. Awaiting its prey!