IUCN report points to growing threat to tigers

The return of tigers to India's forests, the hard-won result of a decades-long, nationwide conservation programme, has resurrected an old threat to the big cats: Poachers. A recent study conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, has shown that as many as half of India's big cats fall prey to poachers. This is in spite of the fact that the tiger population is found in the highly-secured protected forest areas where stringent anti-poaching laws apply. Yet, last year 42 tigers were killed by poachers, according to the Wildlife Protection Society of India. And 2014 is off to a bad start as well, with poachers having claimed three tigers already. Viewed alongside the IUCN-TRAFFIC report, these figures serve as a wake-up call to the authorities. India has made tremendous progress in wrenching back its tiger population from the jaws of extinction but it cannot afford to be complacent about its achievements. Not only is there a long road ahead before the country's tiger population can be restored to a point of vitality, even current gains are fragile and can be easily reversed, if imminent threats are not immediately addressed. 

There is little domestic demand that drives the poaching trade in India; it is almost entirely fuelled by the Oriental traditional medicine industry that values tiger parts, particularly tiger bones. This has been the case since the 1980s when countries in the Far East began targeting India's tiger population after they ran out of supply at home. Usually, poor tribals or other forest communities whose members are familiar with the lay of the land are engaged in the trade and the money generated is known to have been used to finance insurgency movements in the North-East. India has sought to address this problem by engaging locals in the conservation process but unless there is a crackdown on the poaching network that runs through Nepal and China, it will be difficult to make any significant progress. At the ground level, it is important to have a strong intelligence, surveillance and protection force to keep poachers at bay. Unfortunately, our forest officials are often poorly-trained and almost always ill-equipped to handle the challenge. This is despite the fact that crores of rupees are earmarked each year for wildlife conservation programmes. To make matters worse, in the few instances that poachers are caught, it is almost impossible to prosecute them as inept investigating officials are unable to meet the burden of proof. India's infamous poacher, Sansar Chand, who single-handedly wiped out the tigers of Sariska, was convicted in just one case. Thankfully, for every one Sansar Chand, there is also a Manjula Shrivastava, the wildlife lawyer who in less than 15 years has won convictions in more than 100 poaching cases.