March 25, 2005

With the shrinking habitat area inside national parks and wildlife reserves, and growing human pressure on forest resources, tigers are threatened wherever they roam. As human and tigers are living in closer proximity now, the frequency of their interaction has increased. These interactions often end up in casualty on either side as tigers and human fight for self-defense. Like tigers, national parks and wildlife reserves - which were built to confine endangered species within a closed area - is source for livelihood for local population as well. The past three decades of experiences of wildlife conservation show that conservation will be successful and sustainable only when local communities are adjusted as a part of the conservation program. Having put them in confinements for more than three decades, the tiger population - which was virtually at the point of extinction- have drastically increased in the past few years. The growth in the numbers of both tigers and humans has triggered a demand for a strategy to share the existing landscape and resources. The challenge now is how to adjust human and endangered species so that both of them get space to roam and share the resources supporting each other

By KESHAB POUDEL

Bhadai Tharu, 46, a resident of Khothiaghat of Bardia district, 400 miles west of capital Kathmandu, has shown how to improve deteriorating relations between local community and endangered tigers living close to national parks and wild life reserves.

When Tharu went to cut the grass in nearby community forest on January 2004 with local villagers, a tiger attacked him but the quick-thinking villagers raised a din and frightened the animal away. He was saved following a treatment in the hospital but he lost an eye.

Studying pugmark : Locating the tiger

Despite the trauma of deadly attack by a tiger, Bhadi is still committed to lead the management of the Gaur Mahalia Community Forest User Group and conservation of wildlife.

"Animals are animals so we humans have to give them space and learn to co-exist. We all depend on the forests so we must conserve and protect it," said Bhadi, who was honored by World Wildlife Fund Nepal program for outstanding contribution to bio-diversity conservation in Nepal conferring him the Abraham Conservation Award.

The conflict between men and tigers in Nepal's national parks continue to increase and there have been a number of human casualties in Royal Chitwan National Park in the last couple of years. Majority of local residents see the tigers assault on human as a direct threat to their existence. Although mostly the tigers are found to attack people in buffer zone and national park areas declared as safe areas for tigers, people squarely blame tigers for the conflict.

Anger of local population makes the survival of big cats very difficult since poaching has already posed a significant threat to tigers and their prey. Tiger Conservation Action Plan of Nepal reveals that no amount of habitat restoration will result in successful tiger conservation, if high poaching levels continue.

As the government's patrolling alone is not enough to protect the tigers, it requires the support of villagers who can easily identify suspicious activities like poaching. The experiences have shown that local undercover informants are very effective in helping to identify and apprehend poachers.

If conflict between local population and tiger continues to escalate, it would be very difficult to receive support of local population to trap the poachers. This is the reason the government is now making every efforts to involve local community in the process of tiger conservation.

Bhadi's Commitment

Despite violent assaults, Bhadi is only among a few people who still want to coexist with the tigers in his native. Most of the people who are attacked by tigers never express any sympathy to the big cat. Although his life is not very different from those who live in the fringe areas of national parks, Bhadi still champions the cause of conservation. He is among a few who defend the case.

Tiger Cubs : Welcome scence

The failure on the part of the previous programs were that all of them focused on tiger but scant attention was paid to the local community - who live side by side with tigers.

According to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), tigers killed 79 people in the last 25 years including 31 inside the parks and 48 in buffer zones. The incidents of direct conflict have been increasing. There were 26 incidents in 2001, 29 in 2003 and 27 in 2004 inside the park and 32, 29 and 28 at buffer zones respectively.

The encounters between human and wild animals at the buffer zones - the forest areas outside the parks - have increased by many folds. This indicates tigers are gradually expanding their habitat in the buffer zone and human activities have also intensified in the region.

"Nepal's tiger population is distributed in the low lands protected areas of Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP), Royal Bardia National Park (RBNP) and Royal Suklaphanta National Park (RSWR) and the surrounding forests. The technique of camera trapping and pugmark study carried out between 2000 and 2001 recorded altogether 130 breeding tigers -65 in  RCNP, 40 in RBNP and 25 in RSWR. The high density of tiger in Suklaphanta with only 305 square kilometer of area is attributed to abundant prey species in the reserve," said Dr. Tirtha Man Maskey, director general of DNPWC. There are altogether 350 tigers including babies.

The WWF study shows that the forest in Terai and Churia foothills, including the protected areas, provide habitat for wildlife as well as subsistence for 6.7 million people. Forest conversion, overgrazing, forest fires and excessive cutting of fuel wood and timber have led to the degradation and fragmentation of wildlife habitat.

WWF TAL Projects

WWF has been involved in Nepal since the organization first provided support to conserve the greater one-horned rhinoceros and the Bengal tiger in the late 1960s. When the WWF began its program in Nepal, tiger and rhinos were on the verge of extinction.

Realizing a need to provide more space to the endangered species like tigers and make possible their movement from one stretch to another, the Terai ARC Landscape (TAL) was introduced covering a vast conservation landscape of approximately 49,500 square kilometer, stretching from Nepal's Bagmati river in the east to India's Yemuna River in the west.

In 2002, WWF Nepal began the TAL program in collaboration with the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, DNPWC, Department of Forest and local community based organizations to conserve the biodiversity, forests, soils and watersheds on the terai and churia hills in order to ensure the ecological, economic and socio-cultural integrity of the region.

According to WWF-Nepal, the tremendous pressure on natural resources resulted in forest conversion, deforestation, habitat degradation and fragmentation, and socio-economic complexities. "It was in this context that the TAL was envisioned to undertake conservation on a landscape level to ensure ecological integrity of the region with due consideration to the sustainable livelihoods of the people," said Dr. Chandra Gurung, country representative of WWF-Nepal.

The TAL links 11 trans-boundary protected areas across Nepal and India. TAL is home to flagship species like the Asiatic wild elephants, rhinos and tigers. In Nepal, TAL encompasses 23,129 square kilometer of 14 districts including 75 percent of the remaining forests of lowland Nepal including Churia hills and four protected areas. This landscape has the second largest population of rhinos and one of the highest density of tiger population in the world.

Altogether 1,614 hectares of degraded forest areas was restored through community participation in plantation, encroachment control and natural regeneration this year. As a result, the movements of flagship species like tiger were recorded.

The WWF- Nepal says the TAL program values community forestry as an important institutional vehicle to protect and sustain management of forest resources. In this fiscal year, the program handed over a total of 1745.51 hectares of forest to 31 community forest user groups.

The TAL program has supported protected areas to manage 420 hectares of grassland and construction of 12 waterholes. This has improved wildlife habitat and helped to reduce crop depredation by animals.

The TAL program has also undertaken several activities to mitigate human-wildlife conflict that include construction of watch towers, trenches, establishment of bio-fences and the promotion of unpalatable alternative. 

Along with conservation and management efforts, there is a growing focus on research and monitoring of endangered species. Reports confirmed the movement of tigers and wild elephants in the Khata corridor, a crucial link between Royal Bardia National Park and India's Katarnighat Wildlife Reserve.

Threat To Tiger Population

Because of over population coupled with the intensification of insurgency, protection of tiger has become a very difficult task. Thanks to the deterioration of law and order situation and intensification of insurgency, the incident of poaching, too, has gone up. The patrolling of protected areas have become very dangerous as there is constant threat of Maoist ambush inside the forest. In the last two years, 8 staffs of national parks were killed in the ambushes inside the national parks.

Threats to tiger population continue to increase due to poaching and loss of habitat. The fragmentation and loss of habitat is equally threatening for tiger as their population in Nepal are restricted to small protected areas with uncertain long-term viability.

Published by DNPC, the Tiger Conservation Action Plan 1999 stresses the need to manage entire tiger population by maintaining corridors, and by including both prime habitat, in protected areas and large tracts of adjacent forest habitats. "Preservation of tiger will ensure the conservation of all the species sharing its habitat, as well as a healthy ecosystem," said the report.

As a response to the threats of forest cover loss and disturbances in wildlife corridors, the tigers often encounter people.

There are breeding tigers as well as displaced old tigers that are living in buffer zones where most of the community forestry lies. Local community uses these buffer zones to graze their cattle as well as to collect fuel wood.

"The increased incidents of attack in buffer zones show that the tigers require new habitat areas for new population," said Dr. Maskey, director general of Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation. "We must do something to provide more space to the tigers and control poaching."

The incidence of cat attacks on people is still low compared with other natural perils. Tiger kills annually 5 to 10 people annually, while more than 1000 people die each year from snakebites, floods and mosquito borne diseases.

Tigers normally do not attack human beings. Only injured tigers and displaced old tigers attack human being when they are desperate for food. Of course, the big cats don't hesitate to attack livestock and pets. Unless those issues related to tiger habitat are not addressed, it is difficult to end the conflict between human and tigers. Saving cats in crowded areas like Chitwan, Bardia is a complicated task.

KMTNC In Tiger Conservation

World Wildlife Fund WWF-Nepal and King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC) have been implementing programs in order to reduce the conflict between human and wild animals in different national parks in cooperation with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.

Since 1989, KMNTC has been working in Royal Chitwan National Park through Nepal Conservation Research and Training Center (NCRTC). It has been working with the local residents living in the buffer zone area with the twin objectives of providing alternative resources and promoting local guardship of endangered species and their habitats. This has helped in minimizing the existing conflicts between the park and the local people.

According to the Trust, NCRTC has been renamed Bio-diversity Conservation Center (BCC) since January 1, 2002. While continuing with NCRTC objectives, BCC will additionally focus on coordinating with the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation and the Department of Forest to develop a research priority list within and outside the protected areas.

BCC is now implementing Tiger/Rhino Conservation Project (TRCP). Funded by Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Foundation (UNF), and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and in kind support of KMTNC, the objectives of TRCP are to reduce pressure on the resources in the Barandabhar forest corridor, to provide improved and diversified economic options outside the corridor and to manage as well as restore critical ecosystem important for wildlife movement.

The project also monitors the tiger's mobility through camera trapping and pugmarks identification. According to the KMTNC, monitoring of ungulates in the Barandabhar corridor forest has been a regular activity of the project to study the population status, seasonal variation in movement and habitat use.

One of other contributions of KMNTC is supporting the breed of tiger in captive. The birth of four cubs on February 2004 in Central Zoo is another milestone. The four cubs are healthy and strong.

Question Of Survival

As the habitat area of tiger have largely been occupied by the settlers in the terai who migrated following the eradication of malaria in 1960s, it is now limited to certain confined areas that have been declared as national parks.

Dr. Maskey : Serious in Conservation

For the last four decades, this confined park area supported the growth of wild animals like tigers. When the parks were opened in 1970s, the wild animals like tiger and rhinos were on the verge of extinction.

Following the announcement of Royal Chitwan National Park, organized ways of protecting the wild animals begin. Then came other national parks and protected areas including Parsa Wildlife Reserve, Bardia National Park and Royal Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve.  These parks cover the areas from west of Bagmati river to border of far-western region.

The first phase of conservation was successful to raise the number of wild animals but it also resulted in the growing conflict between these predators and population living in and around the parks. The tensions erupt when the wild animals come out of the parks and attack the local population. To protect themselves from wild animals, people generally use poisons and support poachers who kill them.

In the last decade, the government has made many efforts to organize people of the formerly wildlife habitats as a part of the conservation efforts. The resources are allocated to them and additional areas are given to grow the community forest so that animal can find some more space and local community can find resources to fulfill their own demand of fodder and fuel wood.

At a time when tigers and other wild animals are competing for the space with the human population nearby the park, the whole conservation program will depend upon how wild animals and local community develop a mechanism to coexist.

The future of this spectacular species may depend on such experiments. Although they are protected in certain confined areas, poaching has continued to increase.

With the intensification of insurgency and deteriorating law and order situation, poachers intensified their activities. In the last four years, altogether 32 tigers died. According to the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), 3 tigers were killed by poachers and 10 tigers died of natural causes. Likewise, 6 tigers died in mutual aggression, 5 killed because they turned man-eater, 1 in self-defense and 7 by unknown reasons.

Risk For Conservation

Tiger conservation is a very complicated process as it involves various issues. Tigers are one of the largest living cats and there is great range in their size between sub-species and sexes. Adult male can be 3 meters long, and weigh around 200 kg. Tigers are normally solitary, except for females with cubs. According to experts, tigers are territorial and occupy relatively large habitats and the size of habitat usually depends on the prey destiny. Tigers feed predominantly on large deer species and wild boar.

A Rhino taking a bath : Flagship conservation

Although Nepal has made enormous progress in protecting the endangered species like tiger putting them in national parks and wildlife reserves, the experiences of other countries have shown that they are always vulnerable for destruction.

These species confined in certain areas are always vulnerable to infectious diseases and similar other threats. The time has come to go beyond the present traditional approach to preserve them. The TAL project is seen as a model project to expand the territory for tigers and its mobility. These new approaches will free tigers to choose more spaces and find more prey.

In Royal Chitwan National Park, the big cats, which live inside the park, are much safer than others who roam in buffer zones. Big cats that roam outside the reserves increasingly find themselves on turf staked out by farmers, herders and loggers. As the population is booming, the wild prey and cat-friendly habitats are scarce and the cats encounter humans who don't hesitate to use guns and poison to protect themselves and their livelihood. Poachers only add to the cat catastrophe.

"It is clear that the existing national park and wildlife reserves are not the solution. As the place is already over crowded and the space remains restricted, more spaces should be arranged. The concept of buffer zone and TAL fits in here," said Dr. Maskey.

Experts argue that the small population in widely isolated places like national parks do not guarantee long-term conservation. The years-long efforts of conservation may fade away within a short span of time given the violent insurgency and political instability.

"Donors have already invested enormous resources to achieve this but we are in a very critical juncture so we must maintain investment," said Dr.Chandra Gurung, country representative of WWF-Nepal. "I appeal to all the supporters' government, development partner non-governmental organization that this is critical time for the investment in order to retain the achievement gained by us."

Experts argue that the world's population continues to rise and the alpha predators will be squeezed out. One group of experts also argue that immediate requirement is to go beyond the setting up of the sanctuaries. They say that the wild animals should be allowed to live with people in community. They view that there is a need to save entire landscape rather than pieces of land as sanctuaries.

As the number of wildlife rises and insurgency intensifies, the conservation officials of National Parks have difficult time. Along with the threat of human, the staffs also have to face the threat from poachers and insurgents.

Deer in RCNP : Growing prey bases

There were altogether 19 casualties in the last year in the national parks. A year ago two conservation officials and 9 local people were killed when Maoists ambushed their car in the Royal Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in the far western region. Similarly, a few months back 5 staffs were ambushed by Maoist in Parsa Wildlife Reserve when they were on their way to patrolling. Maoists also killed foresters and local scouts in Bardia.

Despite constant threat of death, the officials in the national parks have been trying their best to protect animals from poachers. Anti-poaching units also arrested 103 persons with the skins and pieces of tigers bone in the year 2003 and 2004.

"It is very risky for our staffs that are constantly targeted by poachers as well as other elements," said Dr. Maskey.

The future of this success depends on how local community supports the officials in the national parks and wild life reserves. Big cats like tiger, by nature, are territorial and live in low densities and hunt their prey over vast stretches of land - for instance tigers in Nepal roam over 1000 square kilometers. But with the explosion in human population and rapid rise in the number of tigers, the protected spaces have become insufficient for the big cats leading some of them to venture outside the areas where they encounter human population. And this encounter is often bloody and bitter. Until and unless, such encounters are prevented and appropriate plans are implemented to take local community into confidence, the success of tiger conservations could not become sustainable.