Tiger Day: Campaigners demand a conservation
model that respects tigers and tribal people
A tiger and her two cubs were
recently killed by a park guard in Pench tiger reserve.
Forest officials are often accused of corruption and
involvement in poaching
© Sandip Dey For
international Tiger Day (29 July) Survival International
is calling for a tiger
conservation model that respects tribal peoples as
the best
conservationists and guardians of the natural world,
rather than criminalizing them and subjecting them to
violence.
Last
week a seven-year-old tribal boy called Akash Orang was
shot
and severely wounded in Kaziranga National Park,
where guards are encouraged
to shoot suspected intruders on sight in the name of
protecting rhinos and tigers.
Sixty-two
people were shot there in just nine years under this
notorious “shoot on sight” policy and tribal villagers
are facing arrest and beatings, torture and even death
while tourism is encouraged.
The
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) promotes
commercial tours in the park and has provided
training and equipment to the state authorities who
operate the park. Survival International has written to
WWF’s director urging him to condemn the policy.
A
local activist told Survival: “Adivasi villagers’ rights
as citizens are being eroded away with this
constant fear of death looming over their heads… Instead
of antagonizing these people they should be the
caretakers of the national park, but the government
policy has pauperized and alienated them. They
have no livelihood and are living in a perpetual
jail."
In
an interview the park’s former director, Bishan
Singh Bonal, described the situation in the park as
“open war.” Guards are motivated to execute poaching
suspects on sight, according
to a 2014 report, with slogans like “never allow any
unauthorized entry (kill the unwanted).”
Akash Orang spent over a week
in intensive care after being shot by a Kaziranga park
guard
© JEEPAL Akash
Orang is still in hospital and undergoing further
surgery today after being shot in the legs by a
guard.
Four
wildlife
officials in Kaziranga were recently arrested for
involvement in the illegal wildlife trade. Cases such as
this indicate that targeting tribal peoples diverts
action away from tackling the true poachers – criminals
conspiring with corrupt officials. Targeting tribal
peoples harms conservation.
In
contrast, in BRT Tiger reserve
in southern India, local Soliga tribespeople have won
the right to live on their ancestral land which they
have been dependent on and managed for generations. The
Soliga have a deep reverence for the tiger, and tiger
numbers in the reserve have increased at
significantly above the Indian national average while
living alongside tribespeople. Guards don’t carry guns
and no shoot on sight policy is in place.
Madegowda
C, a Soliga man said: “The Kaziranga park director is
violating the human rights and constitutional rights of
the tribal people… Forest conservation is not possible
without tribal and local communities. Most of the forest
officials do not understand the relationship between the
forest and tribal peoples, they need to understand
tribal cultures and our lifestyles in the forest. Tribal
peoples are the indigenous people of this country and
they are human beings.”
BRT was recently praised in a
film for NDTV’s “Save our Tigers” campaign for
having turned conservation logic on its head, and was
also featured in a BBC Earth article.
Evidence
proves that tribal peoples are better at looking after
their environment than anyone else. They are the best
conservationists and guardians of the natural world.
Despite this, big conservation organizations continue to
support a conservation model which persecutes tribal
peoples. They support policies which have devastating
consequences for people living in and around
reserves.
Survival’s
Stephen Corry said: “Some conservationists are claiming
that this horrific shooting is an isolated ‘accident.’
It’s not. This is a systemic problem – the direct result
of militarized conservation. Extrajudicial killings are
bound to happen when you actively encourage
trigger-happy guards to shoot “poachers.” The powerful
big conservation organizations should loudly condemn the
brutality of the forest department that they fund and
support. Whether or not conservationists care about
tribal peoples’ rights, they should realize that abusing
local people makes them enemies of conservation and this
will guarantee that protected areas fail. Current
practices will result in the end of the tiger."
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11368
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