Times of India , Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Correspondent : Staff Reporter

RANTHAMBORE: On a mission to save the tiger, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went on a safari in the Ranthambore National Park on Tuesday and spotted a tigress from a distance of about five feet. As the convoy of 15 open Gypsies packed with the PM's entourage, including his wife Gursharan Kaur, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and senior government conservationists rumbled in, they quickly spotted the tigress "The Lady of the Lake" lazing around within five feet of them — a sight future generations may not savour unless the government steps up its anti-poaching drive. "This is the first time I've seen a tiger in the wild," confessed Singh. "I am very happy." But he was clearly unhappy with the way wildlife wardens in most of the nation's tiger reserves had failed to protect their wards. On Tuesday, Singh told reporters, "We need to deal strictly with poaching... We need a more effective strategy for tackling poaching and smuggling." He called for equipping forest officials and making available adequate funds for protecting the endangered cat. "Our forest park management needs to be improved through better physical, financial, managerial and technical resources so that they can perform their tasks more effectively," he said. Although most visitors to Ranthambore manage a sighting, Singh and his wife must count themselves lucky to have chanced upon a tiger within an hour of driving into the park at 5.45 am. Of course it helped that the park was sealed off for a census and no other visitors were present. The group stayed in the forest for nearly two and a half hours and drove out after breakfast at Jogimahal, a forest rest house in the 392 sq km park which was once the hunting ground of Rajasthan's nobility. After his visit to the tiger reserve, Singh called for a deeper look at the reasons for disappearance of tigers in the country. He said challenges confronting the national parks and sanctuaries fell in two categories — one related to forest park management and the other to forests-human interface. On Monday, Singh held discussions with wildlife officials and experts on the dwindling numbers of tigers in the country and noted that "all is not well" with the way the national parks were being managed. He said forest communities should also be roped in the conservation efforts. "They need to be involved more in forest protection, in (wildlife) tourism activities and in sharing of incomes arising out of forests. Further, we need a long-term strategy for generating livelihoods out of the forest reserves, for people, so that traditional pressures on forest areas is reduced and people become protectors of forests," he said. Asked about poaching, he said he had constituted the tiger task force to go into causes of disappearance of big cats in state's tiger reserves and would await its report suggesting specific actions by the government to curb poaching. It would be submitting its report in the next two months, he added.

SOURCE : Times of India, Wednesday, May 25, 2005