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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

10/01/24 07:02 AM IST

Project Tiger, now 50

In News
  • Launched in 1973, Project Tiger introduced India’s Tiger Reserves – which have since rapidly ascended in status.
Tiger reserves
  • From only nine Reserves in 1973 encompassing 9,115 sq. km, there are 54 in 18 States, occupying 78,135.956 sq. km, or 2.38% of India’s total land area.
  • Critical Tiger Habitats (CTH) cover 42,913.37 sq. km, or 26% of the area under National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries.
  • The first tiger census, in 1972, used the unreliable pug-mark method to count 1,827 tigers.
  • As of 2022, the more reliable camera-trap method indicated there were 3,167-3,925.
  • India’s tiger population is growing at 6.1% a year, prompting the government to claim India is now home to three-quarters of the world’s tigers.
  • In the same year – 1972 – India enacted the Wildlife (Protection) Act (WLPA).
  • It introduced new spatial fixtures within notified forests, called ‘National Parks’, where the rights of forest-dwellers were removed and vested with the State government.
  • It also created ‘Wildlife Sanctuaries’, where only some permitted rights could be exercised.
  • Project Tiger was the result of this development.
  • The government created the ‘Critical Tiger Habitat’ to vouchsafe a part of India’s forests for tiger-centric agendas.
  • Beyond each CTH would be a Buffer Area: a mix of forest and non-forest land.
  • But even though the latter had an inclusive, people-oriented agenda, the overall ‘fortress conservation’ approach to protecting tigers displaced people who had coexisted with tigers for generations, and became ground zero for generations of conflict.
2006 amendment
  • In 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed a five-member ‘Tiger Task Force’ in 2005.
  • The Task Force found the approach (then) of using guns, guards, and fences wasn’t protecting tigers, and that the increasing conflict between the forest/wildlife bureaucracy and those who coexist with the tigers was a recipe for disaster.
  • The group asserted “the protection of the tiger is inseparable from the protection of the forests it roams in. But the protection of these forests is itself inseparable from the fortunes of the people who, in India, inhabit forest areas.”
  • So the Parliament amended WLPA in September 2006 to create the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and a tiger conservation plan.
  • Under the Act, the habitation-level Gram Sabha was to democratically determine and demarcate the forest rights that FRA recognised and vested in them.
  • The Gram Sabhas became the authority to protect, conserve, and manage the forest, wildlife, and biodiversity within their customary and traditional boundaries. As a result, FRA secured the livelihoods of at least 20 crore Indians – about half of them tribals – in 1.79 lakh villages.
  • Importantly, FRA introduced a ‘Critical Wildlife Habitat’ (CWH), akin to the CTH under WLPA, with one difference: once a CWH had been notified, it couldn’t be diverted for non-forestry purposes.
  • The Adivasi movements had demanded this clause during negotiations.
The extent of CTHs
  • The Union Environment Ministry estimated that, under FRA, 4 crore ha of forest land was to be transferred to village-level institutions, and all forest related laws were to be fine modified accordingly.
  • The government planned to notify the FRA Rules on January 1, 2009, and operationalise the Act.
  • But on November 16, 2007, the NTCA passed an order that gave the Chief Wildlife Wardens 13 days’ time to submit a proposal to delineate CTHs, each with an area of 800-1,000 sq. km.
  • As a result of the hurry, the government ended up notifying 26 Tiger Reserves in 12 States Section 38(V) of WLPA, and without complying with its provisions.
  • Of the 25,548.54 sq. km thus notified, 23,444.93 sq. km – or 91.77% – encompassed CTHs. And except for Similipal in Odisha, the CTHs had no Buffer Area.
  • Today, India bears the long-term brunt of this error: tigers have been forced to inhabit and inherit a landscape heaped with illegalities
Basis for CTHs
  • The basis for the CTH is scientific evidence of the irreversible damage to wildlife that human activities wreak.
  • With this in mind, the Indian government has a responsibility to ascertain whether a reasonable coexistence of forest-dwellers and tigers is possible.
  • If not, it should modify the forest-dwellers’ rights accordingly and relocate them if necessary.
  • Only then can a CTH be established without affecting “the rights of the Scheduled Tribes or such other forest dwellers”.
  • Similarly, the Buffer Area outside the CTH is to promote human-animal coexistence while recognising the livelihood, developmental, social, and cultural rights of the local people.
  • Its geographical limits are to be determined on the basis of objective criteria with inputs from the concerned Gram Sabha as well as an expert committee.
Relocation and rehabilitation
  • Once FRA recognises people’s rights under FRA, the State acquires those rights according to the terms of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act 2013.
  • No relocation can happen without the consent of the affected communities.
  • LARR also requires the rehabilitation package to provide financial compensation as well as secure livelihoods to those relocated.
  • Next, under LARR, the government needs to compensate the relocated people to the extent of including twice the market value of the land, the value of assets attached to the land including trees and plants, a subsistence allowance for a year, a one-time financial assistance for relocation, building materials, belongings, and cattle, and a one-time resettlement allowance.
  • Each family is to be provided land and a house.
  • The resettlement plan also includes the provision of alternative fuel, fodder, and non-timber forest produce resources on non-forest land, electric connections, roads, drainage and sanitation, safe drinking water, water for cattle, grazing land, ration shops, panchayat buildings, post offices, a seed-cum-fertiliser storage facility, basic irrigation, burial or cremation ground, an anganwadi, a school, a health centre, veterinary service centres, community centre, places of worship, and separate land for traditional tribal institutions.
Source- The Hindu

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