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| Sunday, 5 June 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Can Dr. Singh curb fast breeding Tigers? Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake Having read the recent editorial in The Hindu, regarding the personal stewardship of India's Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to restore the viability of the tiger populations in the wild, in India, I began to realise there is a major reverse role for him with regard to tigers in Sri Lanka.
While the mystery of the decline in tiger numbers in India has been unravelled, Prime Minister Singh is also convinced that poaching has played a major role in the decimation of India's best known species. Yet, the situation he faces here is different. There is poaching here too, but it is poaching by the tigers, helping them to increase their numbers. They poach on human territory for children of Homo sapiens that speak Tamil, and quickly turn them into tiger cubs, trained with threats and violence in the skills of hunting for other human prey, be they Tamil, Sinhala or Muslim. These cubs serving the cause of the ruling tiger here are known the world over as child soldiers. Just as an extensive and organised poaching network threatens the species in India, the striped ones here are helped expand by such an organised poaching and smuggling network. Loosely called the Tamil Diaspora, many of them poach the pockets of Tamils abroad and send in funds for the expansion and growth of tigers here. This network also carries out large-scale smuggling of arms into tiger held territory, to threaten the denizens in the rest of the land. If Dr. Singh faces the problem of unprofessional law enforcement to tackle wildlife crime syndicates and a low rate of conviction of poaching offenders, he will see almost a replica of this in Sri Lanka. Quite apart from the enormous problem of unprofessional law enforcement in general, there is little possibility of the law here being enforced among tigers. The tigers here have their own law enforcement procedures based on the Vanni Code of Injustice. There is also the reality of the extremely low rate of conviction of offenders, with regard to general crime and particularly those orchestrated and carried out by the tigers. Similar to the multi-disciplinary bureau proposed for India to save its fast dwindling tigers, there is the need for such a bureau here too, initiated by the Ministry of Political Environment and Tiger Territory. There are serious problems of involving all the law enforcement agencies in this work, because they are not allowed entry to tiger territory, thanks to an MoU signed by the reigning tigers and the Prime Minister in February 2002. What is worse, the Forest Wardens styled the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission are not allowed into many parts of tiger territory, especially areas considered more strategic by the tiger prowlers. There is little doubt that international policing organisations will have to be enlisted to play a major role to stop the poaching by the Sri Lankan tigers scattered abroad, far and wide in so many other countries of both East and West. Just as it across the Palk Strait there is identification about the habitat of the tiger, it is important here that the areas outside the official habitat of the tigers are insulated from pressure by tigers, in the form of violence and brutal killings, carried out so often by tigers that roam freely today in these areas. If India is bothered about mining, road building carried out by commercial interests altering the ecology of several areas protected for tigers, what happens here is that tigers have even built and airstrip in the forest held by them, where they spawn freely, possibly to serve commercial purposes such as smuggling. However, those who study the habits of the tigers here also believe it could be the beginning of a new sub-species of Flying Tigers, which could even pose a threat to other areas of Sri Lanka and India, too. Many experts fear this would seriously alter the politico-ecological balance of the entire South Asian region. No doubt Dr. Singh is aware of the tigers here developing a sea-going capability with another sub-species known as the Sea Tigers. They did receive a major setback in the recent tsunami, but are reported to be recovering fast, and await complete recovery when the post-tsunami aid promised by the world comes to them too. Just as in India, with regard to its threatened species of tigers, scientists and environmentalists are agreed that easing the regulatory brakes, that were once in place to at least control the breeding of tigers that prey on other species, to create conditions said to be conducive for a jaw-jaw wit those who claw-claw and kill all the time, have removed the safeguards for the environment outside the tiger terrain, threatening the very existence of other species that dare oppose the poaching and killing by the tigers. Interestingly, there is also the contentious issue of human communities that live close to today's sanctuaries or territory of the tigers. These communities are under constant threat by the tigers here, in a reverse of what happens in India. The tigers here have turned hostile to these communities that live in what are in fact border villages, euphemistically referred to as "villages under threat". Living on the border of human and tiger controlled territory the tigers prevent these people from finding sustenance through minor forest produce, and even carry out clawed abductions of those who stray into the tiger forests to gather firewood. Here too, many are of the view that a good practical solution will be to create sustainable livelihood options for these communities in expanded buffer zones around tiger terrain, but not within it. But the growl of protest of the tiger is heard loud against this, especially by the tigers that roam freely in human territory, who say these will become High Security Zones that prevent the free movement and breeding of tigers. There is indeed much to be said for the idea of creating a professional and well-equipped wildlife service patterned after similar forces in countries such as the United States, with the difference here being to keep the breeding of tigers under strict control. It should also have a clear mandate to protect the other species that live in the forests and even outside, conserve biodiversity, especially political biodiversity in the form of pluralism, and disseminate research that highlights the dangers to civilisation from the Sri Lanka species of tigers. One must hope that after Dr. Manmohan Singh establishes the structures to
protect and help increase the threatened Indian tigers with the greatest of
speed, he will have time to turn his attention to make the Sri Lankan tiger
a species that will soon be extinct from this earth. |
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Dr. Singh has raised some hope that there will be decisive action on the
ground with regard to the tigers over here, with the observation that he has
not kept their antics out of sight. 
