World Wildlife Day 2022: Tiger conservation, and the Tx2 project

(Representational image). The Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu received the TX2 Award in January 2022, for doubling its tiger count to 80 tigers since 2010. (Image: Miranda Richey via Unsplash)

The tiger will see you hundred times before you see it once.

― Anonymous

The person who wrote this must have seen the tiger at least once. Not many can be seen now, though. From 100,000 wild tigers at the beginning of the 20th century, the numbers have dwindled to 3,200. Many tigers have been poached, hunted, poisoned. Even now, every year, 124 dead tiger skin, parts and products are seized as they are being trafficked across borders by international criminal networks (Source: WWF).

Not only tiger numbers, their habitat has also shrunk dangerously. Since the 1700s, tigers have been lost from half of their former Range Countries and now inhabit just 5% of their historic range.

Tiger Range Countries are those where tigers roam freely. There are only 13 such countries in the world: India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Tigers are considered locally extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Double the tigers

In 2010, government of all Tiger Range Countries came together for the first time at the St Petersburg Summit (2010), and committed to doubling the number of wild tigers to 6,000 by 2022.

The project was called TX2. And the participating countries in the Global Tiger Recovery Program were Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

While most Tiger Range Countries are struggling with doubling the numbers, India has fared reasonably well. From 1,411 in 2006 to 2,226 in 2014 and 2,967 tigers as per 2018 census, the numbers have been increasing at 6% per annum. India has nearly 60% of the global tiger population.

TX2 Awards

Last year, Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (Uttar Pradesh), one of the narrowest tiger reserves in India, won the inaugural TX2 Award for doubling the tiger population in the last decade. Interestingly, the surrounding areas of the park support among the highest human population densities of all tiger conservation landscapes globally. Yet the number of tigers doubled in four years: from 25 in 2014 to 65 tigers in 2018.

In January this year, Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (Tamil Nadu) was awarded the TX2 Award after its tiger numbers doubled since 2010. Sathyamangalam was declared a Tiger Reserve in 2013 and now has about 80 tigers. The Nilgiri biosphere landscape that this reserve is part of, is currently home to the largest tiger population in the world.

But will merely doubling the numbers ensure long-term survival of tigers?

“No,” said ecologist Dr Latika Nath. “The increasing numbers can be very heartening but what about the essentials for survival - water availability, habitat betterment, resolution of man-animal conflict?"

"We have little or no understanding of movement patterns of tigers, and zero work is being done to sensitise people about how to deal with tigers who stray in human habitation areas,” Dr Nath, who is the first person in the world to hold a doctoral degree (Oxford University) in tiger studies, told moneycontrol.com.

“We need to move from being preservationist to conservationist. There is an urgent need to create a special wildlife services cadre (as distinct from forest services), and (enable) more cross-country cooperation - between countries where there is high demand for tiger parts and countries which are home to tiger populations,” Dr Nath added.

What about development around tiger reserves and laws against poaching?

Anjana Gosain, Chief Functionary, Tiger Trust (tigertrustindia.org) - which was founded by Kailash Sankhala - and a conservationist who raised a voice in favour of protecting the tiger as early as 1956, said: “In the past 10 years, there has been invasive development around the parks which is leading to shrinking of habitat and escalation of man-animal conflict. For long, poaching was a commercial crime, now it is more revenge crime - villagers are killing/poisoning tigers for preying on humans/cattle,” Gosain told moneycontrol.com.

“On an average, a poaching case takes 10 years in the courts and the punishment is up to 7 years. In Assam, a poacher can be sentenced to life imprisonment. We need to make anti-poaching laws more stringent under the revised Wildlife Act which has been tabled in the Parliament,” Gosain added.

The TX2 project was launched in 2010, to double the world's tiger population to 6,000 by 2022.

Long road for tiger conservation

It has been long road for tiger conservation in India which began with the launch of Project Tiger in 1973.

From nine tiger reserves, the Project Tiger coverage has increased to 53 at present, spread out in 18 of our tiger range states. This amounts to around  to 2.23% of India’s geographical area.

Interestingly, the world’s first tiger census based on pugmark count was done in 1932 in Palamau Tiger Reserve (Jharkhand) under the supervision of J.W. Nicholson, the then Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Palamau.

World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF India) has been an integral part of India’s tiger conservation programs. Dr Pranav Chanchani, National Lead-Tigers WWF India, said that WWF has helped create enabling conditions for tiger recovery in multiple sites located across six tiger conservation landscapes in India - Terai, Western Ghats, Sunderbans, Brahmaputra plains and Karbi Anglong, Central India and Western India.

“Prioritising tiger recovery in areas beyond the protected area network - for example, Nandhaur Forest Division, Pilibhit Forest Division and Erode Forest Division. By bringing resources, technical expertise and engaging extensively with communities, including by strengthening institutions for local stewardship of natural resources to these areas, WWF has helped strengthen protection and management,” Dr Chanchani told moneycontrol.com.

Other important steps taken by WWF include supporting conservation and restoration in key wildlife corridors as well as mitigation of human-wildlife conflict, for example, by rapidly compensating livestock depredation cases through the Interim Relief Scheme program run around a few Protected Areas where conflict is very high.

Over the years, WWF and TRAFFIC have helped strengthen measures to increase protection efficacy and curb illegal wildlife crime across India's various tiger conservation landscapes.

A tigress named Noor at the Ranthambore National Park. From nine tiger reserves in 1973, Project Tiger has grown its coverage to 53 reserves across 18 states.

TX2 deadline

The second Tiger Summit is scheduled to be held in Vladivostok, Russia,  later this year (events could be changed or cancelled, as the situation develops on the border between Ukraine and Russia). This will be the first such meeting since 2010; the summit will close the original Global Tiger Recovery Programme period (2010-2022) and determine whether the goal of 6,000 wild tigers has been met. It will also define the direction and priorities of global tiger conservation for the following decade or more.

“The actions and policies of today will determine that status of tigers, other wildlife and their habitats 20 years from now, and beyond. The immediate priority is for multiple agencies to come together to strengthen corridor conservation, and for enabling legal and policy frameworks to strategically influence land use change in corridors. These actions will help expand opportunities for tiger population recovery," Dr Chanchani said. "Failing to meaningfully address concerns around connectivity and conflict will, on the contrary, result in tigers being restricted to shrinking, fragmented habitats in many areas,” he added.

Tigers across the world are threatened by poaching and loss of habitat, the latter mostly due to rapid infrastructural development and decreasing forest space. (Image: Reuters)