The Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh boasted of as many as 40 tigers till six years back. Today however, the count is very sadly down to null. The lone tiger at Panna has not been sighted for over 25 days now.

The Government on its part is trying to locate the tiger. As part of the effort, two tigresses from Bandhavgarh National Park and Kanha National Park were shifted to the area. However, it has not brought out the desired result. Some say that the tiger has wandered away into the forests of Chattarpur.

Well, lets hope the tiger has indeed wandered away and has not been slain by poachers. But how does a tiger reserve with no tigers sound? Wonder how they managed to mess up so much. And why no one did anything about it while they still had the time. Indeed, its become so common these days to wonder why we didn’t act when we could have. The Age of Stupid tells us its going to become the most asked question tomorrow.

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save tiger, Sustainable Living

That our tiger count is rapidly waning is no new news. We have lost more than 39 tigers in the last year out of which 17 have been in the last three months alone. And mind you these are official figures. I recently read an article by Jay Mazoomdaar where he elaborates on how the unprofessional management and lack of knowledge on the part of concerned officials is nulling any tiger conservation efforts.

Jay enumerates an incident where a tiger cub was mistakenly taken to be a man-eater and had it not been for the prudence of the authorities at Corbett in 2005, there would have been killings.  Interesting….

To quote Jay, “Conservation is not about raising a million tigers in ranches but about letting a few thousands to be in the wild, where at the top of the food chain, they protect the ecology of forests, which in turn, ensure our water security.”

Food for thought…?

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save nature, save tiger, Sustainable Living

Reports say that the authorities have succeeded in killing the man eater near the Kaziranga National Park. Another man-eater tiger that had claimed four lives in UP had met the same fate in Bakchula Forest in February this year.

Yet another tiger that had turned a man-eater in UP was fortunately tranquilised and sent to the Kishanpur Wildlife Santuary. That makes 3 incidents in the last two months alone.

Why are tigers turning into man-eaters? It requires no rocket science to figure this out. As long as man will continue to gobble up greedily habitats and resources meant for other species, there will be a backlash. The planet belongs as much to the other species as it does to us. We need to realise that we need the other species for our own survival. Without these animals, insects and birds our ecosystem will fail. That is what we need to understand. Shooting man-eaters is not the solution. Attacking the reason they turn into man-eaters is the only viable solution.

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save nature, save tiger

Poaching, poisoning and infighting are killing our tigers.  While the majority of incidents have been reported from the Kanha Tiger Reserve (MP) and Kaziranga National Park (Assam), two tigers were found dead in Corbett Tiger Reserve as well.

Last month, the Army officials seized several tiger body parts at the Myanmar border, which goes to prove that poaching is still very rampant. Despite the ban, tiger parts are actively being traded illegally. In a lot of cases, it has been found that poverty forced the locals to resort to tiger killings for paltry sums from the traders.

Poverty alleviation and sensitizing the locals as well as general popualtion to the importance of conserving wildlife are the only ways to tackle the menace. While NGOs are actively doing their bit, the state authorities perhaps would do well to train and recruit locals as forest guards. That would serve both purposes - give them employment and make them partners in environment conservation. If the locals and the forest officials are together involved in prerservation of the tigers, I doubt the masterminds behind the poaching activities will find any success in their designs!

By the way, there has been further addition to the count since I first saw the above numbers, though that has been on account of tigers turning into man-eaters. Definitely attributable to humans again.

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save nature, save tiger, Sustainable Living

March 21 was World Forestry Day. Befittingly, the Ministry of Environment & Forests laid down certain concrete objectives for the year, its theme being “Sustainable Forest Management”. The ministry has resolved to:

• Bring 33% of the landmass under forest or tree cover
• Forests to be managed holistically for their ecological, economic and socio-cultural roles
• Forests to play a key role in climate change amelioration

Kudos to the ministry. Hope they have worked out the strategies to achieve these objectives and are also able to put it into action!

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save nature, save tiger, Sustainable Living