N Munal Meitei
Contd from previous issue
Ecotourism has been severely impacted, especially impacting tiger landscapes and decline in revenues which has a direct threat to the livelihoods of community rangers, park revenue and income for local communities.
Manipur being the border State with Myanmar is in a strategic route for wildlife crime. Wild life crime is the largest crime atop the drugs and arms in terms of volume and number in the present world. The illicit demand for bones and other body parts of tiger for use in traditional Chinese medicine is another reason for the unrelenting poaching pressure in the country.
The mandate for project tiger is the hope to conserve tigers in a holistic manner. At present the dynamics of forest management and wildlife conservation have been distorted due to need of income, lack of manpower, lack of awareness, lack of land use policy and population pressure. A regional development approach in landscapes having Tiger Reserves is of utmost importance in our country. It should be viewed as a mosaic of different land use patterns, viz, tiger conservation, forestry, sustainable use and development, besides socio-economic growth.
Tiger habitats exist in environments of thousands of indigenous communities which depend on them and the traditional use systems of people in these landscapes are neither static nor benign. Therefore we cannot view these protected areas in isolation from the surrounding socio-economic realities and developmental priorities of the Government. This calls for a cross-sectorial and cross-disciplinary approach.
Tigers now need a ‘preservationist’ approach. Regional management planning is important all over the country to foster ecological connectivity between protected areas through a restorative input with integrated land use planning. In Manipur also recently, it was reported cattle to been killed by tiger in Tamenglong district. It is good news as it could include the State in the global tiger map and has also given the opportunity for the conservationist to take care of the striped animal. Though, we have the Acts and Rules, unless the acceptance from all sections of the society that our National animal is in a tipping point, we will be too late for to save the tiger, the iconic, royal, majestic and the king of the forests. Email:-
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