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Conservation Biology, Pages 818–820Volume 11, No. 3, June 1997

Avoiding Paper Tigers and Saving Real Tigers: Response to Saberwal

K. ULLAS KARANTH AND M. D. MADHUSUDAN

Wildlife Conservation Society (India program), Apartment 403, 26-2 A. A. Ali Road, Bangalore, India 86042

We appreciate Saberwal’s articulate comments on theWildlife Conservation Society’s recent report,

Savingthe Tiger: A Conservation Strategy

(Norchi & Bolze1995). We agree that devolving authority and responsi-bility for natural area management to a more local levelis frequently an effective approach to conservation, anapproach that is widely recognized (e.g., IUCN et al.1991; IIED 1994; Western & Wright 1994; UNEP 1996).We endorse Saberwal’s primary point that long-term,successful conservation will depend on the support ofcommunities to build “site specific and enduring rela-tionships between [them] and government agencies.”This approach characterizes many Wildlife ConservationSociety (WCS) projects around the world. In many coun-tries, including India, the same end is sought by numer-ous political and social movements (e.g., Gadgil & Guha1992; Kothari et al. 1995). There is no doubt that chang-ing national political and economic “power structureswill eventually influence our ability to save the tiger.”The primary purpose of the WCS report, however,which is based on our long-term field involvement withtiger conservation in many parts of Asia, is not to advo-cate a reform of Asian society that would

eventually

as-sure the survival of the tiger. It is to recognize the immi-nent threats to tigers and to highlight urgent actionrequired to save the species—within the prevailing so-cial contexts. If the recommended steps are not takennow, by the time power structures are eventuallychanged, there will be no tigers left to save.

Saberwal is critical of the WCS emphasis on protectivemeasures for tigers in important areas and desires a“cheaper, more effective, and ... more realistic means ofchecking tiger poaching [through] the generation of lo-cal support for tiger conservation.” Although we empa-thize with the long-term goal of replacing regulatorywith incentive-based conservation systems, the tiger sit-uation in India is too critical to rely solely on long-term

schemes. During the last 6–7 years there has been asharp deterioration of wildland protection in India. Re-cent surveys and reports of Subramanian Committee,Delhi High Court Committee, Wildlife Protection Soci-ety of India, V. Thaper, S. Deb Roy, and our own fieldsurveys (WCS 1995; Thaper 1995; Wildlife ProtectionSociety of India [WPSI] 1995; Day 1996; EIA 1996) con-firm the grim reality of severe shortages of staff, dispir-ited and aging work force, and the failure to recruit re-placement personnel. Existing staff are increasinglybeing diverted away from active patroling and protec-tion. Economizing measures have crippled mobility andequipment maintenance and have hit payrolls of forestguards. Cumulatively, the protective capacity that ex-isted a decade ago does not now exist in India. The con-sequence has been a dramatic increase in poaching. Sei-zures of illegally killed tigers are now common in India,with perhaps 200–400 being killed annually to supplythe traditional Asian medicine trade. In addition, huntingof wild ungulate prey by local people is depriving tigersof their prey base (Madhusudan & Karanth, in press),which depresses reproduction and survival rates, andthus reduces the viability and range of wild tiger popula-tions (K. U. Karanth & B. Stith, unpublished data). Con-trary to Saberwal’s suggestion that antipoaching mea-sures recommended in the WCS report are effective onlyagainst motorized poachers, our experience and studies(Madhusudan & Karanth, in press; S. Deb Roy pers.comm.) suggest these measures are extremely effectiveagainst poachers on foot as well. We believe there is noescape—if we have the political will to conserve the ti-ger—from making substantial investments in protectivemeasures now. Such investments do not preclude paral-lel efforts to build local support for tiger conservationover the long term.

Within the Indian context, there are additional chal-lenges to the implementation of community-based con-servation where the goal is to conserve the tiger. In gen-eral, such an approach is most effective at low humanpopulation densities, where stewardship of natural re-

Paper submitted December 2, 1996; revised manuscript acceptedJanuary 21, 1997.

Conservation BiologyVolume 11, No. 3, June 1997

Karanth & Madhusudan Response to Saberwal

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sources allows people to meet their socioeconomicneeds and where appropriate institutions exist to man-age the natural system. This is not the situation in manytiger areas in India. The tiger is a solitary, potentiallydangerous predator that requires significant prey popu-lations for its sustenance and is the object of a burgeon-ing global market in its body parts. The tiger lives in ar-eas characterized by rising human populations that arefrequently economically and politically marginalized.Under these circumstances, we are not sanguine thatcommunity-based tiger conservation approaches will beimmediately applicable in these areas.

Recognizing this difficulty, the WCS report empha-sizes the urgent need for identifying and protecting afew “critical tiger habitats,” areas managed for the pri-mary purpose of conserving tigers, which must be main-tained free of incompatible human activity. The reportdoes not call, as Saberwal implies, for all tiger habitats tobe so inviolate. In India, with a land area of over 3 mil-lion km

2

, and a forest area of 635,000 km

2

, is it unrea-sonable to set aside a few inviolate 500–1000 km

2

forestpatches for the primary purpose of saving the tiger andthe habitat in which it lives? These core tiger conser-vation areas (see World Wildlife Fund (WWF) & WCS1997) will, out of necessity, be part of a more extensivelandscape matrix devoted to meeting human resourceneeds.

We therefore disagree with Saberwal that the conser-vation of the tiger in India can be achieved over theshort term solely using positive incentives and local com-munity empowerment. Even over the long term, this ap-proach will be difficult to implement. Regulation, atsome level of government, will be necessary to maintainsome habitat necessary for viable tiger populations, andthat will work against the interests of some people livingin and around tiger reserves. Whereas human beings cancoexist with high levels of biological diversity in somecircumstances, we know of no site in Asia where highdensity, productive tiger populations coexist with highdensity human populations depending on agriculture,forest product extraction, and animal husbandry with-out the need for very significant regulation over humanactivities. Even in the case of Gir Lion reserve (cited bySaberwal to suggest feasibility of coexistence) a reduc-tion in human and livestock densities was necessary foran increase in the prey population of ungulates (R. Chel-lam, pers. comm.).

Saberwal’s response to our report abounds in paper ti-gers. Concatenation of phrases like “translocate humanpopulations,” “build walls,” and “arm guards with so-phisticated weaponry” makes good theater but does notpromote rational debate. Saberwal states that the WCSreport demands the “eviction of humans from tiger habi-tat.” Nowhere does the report make this statement. Thereport is in fact, in accord with Saberwal, critical ofpoorly executed relocations (WCS 1995, p. 10). In many

areas critical for tigers, however, people have demandedrelocation to get better access to facilities like power,roads, schools, health care, and other community ser-vices (e.g., parts of Bhadra and Nagarahole reserves inIndia). In other remote areas, local communities are sell-ing out to business concerns (e.g., luxury resorts withinBhadra and Kudremukh reserves). What people desirefor themselves (land, housing, water, and other ameni-ties) commonly is of greater importance to them thanthe apprehensions of their advocates about “social frag-mentation.” Under these circumstances, well executedparticipatory relocations out of critical tiger habitats canreduce pressure on tiger populations, reduce conflictwith and provide opportunities to people, and mitigatethe need for heavy-handed law enforcement, which, aspointed out by Saberwal, antagonizes local communi-ties. We argue that conservationists (and clearly those in-terested in social justice) should seize appropriate op-portunities for voluntary relocation when they arise.Similarly, appropriate compensation systems should beconsidered. The bitter experiences of forced evictionsand the failures of many past compensation effortsshould not generate a knee-jerk antipathy to such effortsin the future.

Another paper tiger of Saberwal is his dismissal of “ed-ucating people living near tigers ... on the benefits ofconservation and the important ecological role of ti-gers.” The reality is that a WCS supported programaround reserves in Kodagu district of India has beenquite successful at generating interest in and some localsupport for conservation efforts. However, we agreewith Saberwal that such efforts do not replace the needfor community participation in wild area management,and the report makes no such suggestion.

Saberwal criticizes our statement that “... integratedcommunity development programs should reorient ex-traction of natural resources from areas from inside tigerhabitats to areas lying outside.” Clearly such an ap-proach is not an immediate solution where “protectedareas are the only source of fuelwood and fodder for lo-cal settlements.” In most such reserves (e.g., Sariska Ra-jaji), biological resources are being overexploited,threatening the long-term survival of the reserves andshrinking the resource base for humans. Without a long-term solution that involves reducing such exploitativepressures, these resources will disappear. There aremany areas, however, where this approach is feasible.There are private lands, government Revenue Lands, andReserved Forests adjacent to India’s tiger reserves thatalready are meeting local resource needs. On the west-ern edge of Nagarahole, for instance, biomass needs aremet from private coffee plantations and around Eruviku-lam Park from tea gardens. Panwar (1987) has clearlymade the case for specifically focused social forestryoutside Indian tiger reserves, and King Mahendra Trustfor Nature Conservation (KMT)/ WWF (1995) has dem-

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Response to Saberwal Karanth & Madhusudan

Conservation BiologyVolume 11, No. 3, June 1997

onstrated positive effects of such landscape oriented In-tegrated Conservation and Development Programs(ICDPs) around Chitwan in Nepal.

The recommendation in the WCS report to give “pri-ority to local and indigenous people when hiring fieldstaff” is not meant as a substitute for the larger issue ofsocial empowerment. Instead we recognize, based onour direct experience, that local people, who desper-ately desire such jobs, are in fact competent to do them.While the job of a forest ranger or a park guard mightlook like the “lowest rung on the conservation hierar-chy” from afar, locally these are powerful, socially cov-eted positions. Current Indian government recruitmentrules do not recognize the field skills of local and indige-nous people, instead emphasizing proficiency in exami-nations. This ensures that truly skilled people rarely gethired. This needs to be changed.

We concur with Saberwal that “conservation effortsmust be site-specific” (all WCS projects are), that it is in-appropriate to “romanticize local communities as intrin-sically living in balance with nature” or “to suggest localinstitutions are necessarily more robust or more effec-tive than government agencies.” We also agree with Sa-berwal about the need to move policy discussions fromNew York and New Delhi—and, for that matter fromYale and Harvard—to the villages of India. And we dourge that the tiger’s ecological needs, human demo-graphic realities, and the sweeping power of global mar-kets not be left out of the reckoning in the process.

Acknowledgments

We thank J. Robinson and D. Bolze for comments onearly drafts of this manuscript.

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