Shri Vijai Sharma, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, said that the tiger is under threat and despite its own intrinsic character to be aloof, is most visible today because of its natural charisma and media campaign of ‘Save the Tiger’. In his inaugural address at the “Conference of Field Directors of Tiger Reserves on Enforcement”, he said, “This convention will take stock of our successes and failures. People see value in tigers’ body parts, so it is a challenge how to combat it. Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) is result of recommendation of a committee which forced us to thrive on the possibility of world without a tiger which was a shock to us.”
He further said, “40 to 50% tigers of the entire world live in India. The efforts of pilot projects have been successful. Today’s meeting’s aim is to find out how further we can go in to save tigers and plug the gaps in our information to ensure the coordination between the WCCB on the enforcement side and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on the management side.”
Shri Sharma informed, “In 1994, about 12 years after Wildlife Protection Act came into effect, the Government of India constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Subramanyam to take a comprehensive look into protection scenario and suggest measures for protection of tigers. After the committee’s suggestion, the formation of a Crime Cell in the Ministry with intelligence and other enforcement professionals to control poaching and organized illegal trade took place.”
In 2004, Sariska came into the lime-light which generated necessity of a central agency to tackle organized wildlife crimes having inter-state and inter-national nature. The Tiger Task Force endorsed the idea of WCCB. This has been functioning since 2007. The Ministry will expand the Bureau significantly to enhance its activities in the field and become more efficient and effective for better coordination with state governments and other agencies.
The Bureau is a multi-disciplinary body and has a very important coordinating role. The recent seizure of large quantity tiger bones and skin at Dimapur and Guwahati indicates Bureau’s success with lot of intelligence.
Shri Dilip Kumar, Director General and Special Secretary in the Ministry, said, “The wildlife management have to be developed in a way which uses the stake of the local communities. We can not accept system of conservation from West. We have to be in touch with our people continuously, find ways, and do not create a sense of antagonism with local communities continuously. Being custodian of land and rich ecological resources, we know that we face huge challenge in protecting the resources.” He added, “We continuously negotiate with communities, all stakeholders, forces from outside like industries, corporate sectors, etc. This is a dynamic situation and having porous borders, we have to develop a style of wildlife conservation functioning which is different from huge forest areas of uninhabited islands.” Shri Dilip Kumar said that since the Tiger is apex species in all metrics of different wildlife habitats and different species, to conserve and protect it is a big challenge. Referring to various dichotomies in wildlife conservation which we are facing, he said that in this kind of situation, it is obvious that all of us have to pull together, not only in different government agencies but also all sections in society, and all stakeholders have to get together in this endeavour.
Talking about strengths and weaknesses of the forest departments, he explained that forest officers are the primary custodians of the forest habitats and the eco- systems of this country. The strengths are that they the officers and other staff members are very disciplined, trained in a particular way, and probably this is the only cadre in the country which is trained in a focused manner for a particular purpose, which is to protect the land and the habitat. Because of this, the forest department and its frontline staff is the only force of the government which is present in the remote areas, apart from border areas where armed forces or paramilitary forces are posted.
The Forest Department has a very characteristic way of functioning. It is characterized by high degree of isolation. So forest officers learn to function in isolation with very few people around them. This makes them highly dependent on local communities. He informed that the Home Ministry and Planning Commission have taken note of this situation during discussion with the Ministry’s officials few days back. The government has been suitably sensitized to this civil cadre which functions with high discipline and good chain of command which can function as one of the arms of the government in these remote areas.
Regarding weaknesses of forest department, he accepted that they have very little staff. Forest department is not successful in prosecuting or conducting investigation and taking it to a logical conclusion. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau has been created to take care of this.
Mr. Dilip Kumar cautioned and advised WCCB, “When two departments are working in the same area, automatically a turf war is created – conflicts of interest and inter-departmental conflicts in the field.” He suggested, “From the beginning, the forest department and officers in crime Bureau should be very sensitive to this sort of situation. Most required things are frequent consultative meetings on the ground, planning in collaboration, and lot of communication and team building. Otherwise, all good intentions of WCCB will not translate on the ground.”
Giving details about the three Fellowship Programmes which the Ministry is planning to start in next five year plan, the DG said, “This is a small step in the direction of creating specialization and expertise in the forest service. These fellowships are ‘Hari Singh Fellowship’ for fresh officers, ‘S. K. Fellowship’ and ‘C. Ranganath Fellowship’.”
Total seven officers, who passed out this year from Indian Forest Service (IFS) and showed more than extraordinary interest and aptitude in wildlife and have been associated with NGOs working in this field, have been identified and selected for specialized training in Wildlife Management. They will directly go to Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun.
In each batch of IFS, 5-10 probationers will be identified and sent to WII, added Shri Dilip Kumar. This will be done under Hari Singh Fellowship. The aim of this Fellowship is to catch them young, because once they join administrative work and other duties; it becomes difficult to go back to study.
Next year, the Ministry will identify institutes for other subjects, disciplines like forest genetics, forest management, sociology, socio-economic subjects, etc. This concept will come in next five year plan.
