G. L Khajuria
The tiger (Panthere tigris ) as we all well know is our National Animal which is more mercilessly on the verge of extinction at the cruel hands of modern most civilised man not in India but across the globe. Nature is a great healer and bountiful at the same time so much so that it signifies concern of sympathy for all biofoms in their natural ecosystem or what in other words round we nomenclatures as biodiversity.
The man though very proudly claims to be a social animal is unambiguously very heinous towards its surrounds whether to talk of vide, varied rich flora or kaleidoscopic wildlife which intermingle with the so called lush green, vibrant and salubrious forests, flora and funa ranging from micro-organism to the giant elephant and the like.
The environment coupled with, rich fauna has in unison been in the merciless and gruesome hands of man in a multihued ways of decimation for more so for greeds than needs. All these factors in combination are affording an ample opportunity to multihued smugglers, wildlife mafias who take advantage for ruthless decimation and denudation of already frizzled forest cover together with unaccountable and unimaginative loot and plunder of wildlife housing in and around these forest.
These are, of course, the sad and woeful unending stories of the decimation and criminalisation towards the ever-renewable green-gold and colourful wildlife housing in their well-defined eco-system.
Before we go indepthly to ascertain the causes and consequences regarding their wanton dwindling and decimation, let us have a glimpse of our wildlife reserves in our country. India has a vast potential of tiger reserves sprawling over length and breadth of the county, rather the sub-continent as a whole.
These tiger reserves are as for example in Bandipur (Karnatka), Corbet (U.P.) , Kanah (MP) , Manas (Odissa) , Sunderbans (West Bengal , Parihar (Kerala) , Sarika (Rajasthan), Simphal Buxa ( W. Bengal), Indravati (MP) , Nagar Juna Sagar (AP) and Namdapha (AP) etc.
Though all out efforts are being afooted for the creation of many more such reserves in a bid to ensure and enhance the natural heritage, but what purpose does it serve when these are indiscriminately subjected to hunting and poaching under the cover of power and pelf of higher echelons?
Out of all these tiger reserves, Sarika is profoundly, more symptomatic of multihued tigers amongst all other tiger reserves in the entire sub-continent of India, but at the same moment, we are confronted with certain fallouts in the system in so for as the protective aspect is concerned. Valmik Thapar, a well known naturalist and environmentalist, mentioned years back that he had been on the job for so many years in serving tigers and other wild animals and their habitates and explains further that he had never ever observed any encounter of crisis of such a magnitude . He had mooted out the root cause is resulting from misgovernance both at lower ebb as well as apathetic attitude at higher level and mismanaging at both the levels had in unison made the situation deteriorating. The breakdown in the system started two and three decades back and the outcome result revealed that MOEF doesn’t work in its rightful perspective resulting thereby that state government feel complacent. It is sad to say that the major caring part is set aside and lesser part is prioritised.
During the premiership of late Indira Gandhi, the wildlife laws were dealt with stringently under the purview of wildlife protection Act – 1972 banning thereby poaching and shooting of tigers and the export of their bones, skin and allied parts.
The fact goes that the wildlife protection Act itself was promulgated by Indira Gandhi in 1972 and in the subsequent years Pilot Project Tiger was introuduced to ensure safety and security of tigers from extinction and banning strickly the export of their body parts which under the laid down laws of Wildlife Act are unlawful, illegal and heinous. Her dynamic and dedicated approach and political will power was far-beyond of Testeemed vision so much so that even the state government found it quite unimaginative to fall in line. The preservation and conservation of tigers throughout the country as well across the globe is the subject of bigger row. A few years earlier, a general conscious was sought in the county to ascertain causes and consequences and further working out strategic solution to avert and adopt foolproof measures to arrest the ever-escalating decimation and dwindling of colourful wildlife including the avains and other winged visitors all over the country.
As a consequence, around 200 different experts, officials and other well-versed villagers have put forth their suggestive measures. One of major bottlenecks with which we are confronted with is that the issue has become very cumbersome and excluvist and with the soaring threats of their multiplication turns unsupportive to the extent of their dwindling and decimation in all its intogetherencess.
