The  recent  tiger census has exploded the myth of Project Tiger. Initially a successful  intervention backed by requisite political will, it reversed the decline of the Royal Bengal Tiger in India. A number of potentially good tiger habitats were secured, hunting for sport was successfully curbed and protection mechanism was vitalized. Between its launch in 1973 and 1990 tiger numbers in the wild registered a steady increase from a mere 1200 to nearly double the figure. Then came the decline again and the enemy this time was too formidable for the State Forest Departments to take on - organized syndicates running a huge illicit trade in wildlife and its derivatives.

However, instead of publicly accepting their inability to confront the mafia, Project Tiger authorities resorted to camouflaging the crisis behind a numbers game, projecting conjectural figures taking advantage of the inadequacy of the prevalent estimation techniques and even went on the offensive against NGOs to maintain their half truths.     It was only when the tiger vanished entirely from Sariska, that the bluff could no longer be sustained.

Had Project Tiger accepted the inconvenient truth of their inadequate preparedness to tackle the onslaught of the wildlife mafia, they could have generated enough support perhaps from the Government itself and certainly from the non-Governmental sector within India and abroad to improve their situation. Now when they have belatedly acknowledged the crisis they have lost almost fifty percent of the tigers and there is even less political will than in the 90s decade.

What promises to reverse the downslide again is the spirit of the NGO sector. Within a few months of the crisis coming out in the open the International Tiger Coalition was formed and it successfully prevented China from opening up internal trade in tiger parts. The media too has now joined in with NDTV starting a nationwide campaign for the tiger.

The Corbett Foundation (TCF) has been part of both  initiatives. And if the recent census is given the credibility it deserves, TCF can look back with satisfaction over its contribution to Corbett Tiger Reserve – the only Protected Area to have registered an increase in tiger numbers. The hitherto believed 140 odd tigers actually turned out to be 168! This could be close to the highest known density in the world, of tigers in the wild. 

Despite all odds TCF sustained its initiatives on human-tiger conflict in the buffer zone with the conviction that the tigers were most vulnerable in these zones. The gravest threat was not from the mafia alone but the indifference and even antagonism of local communities towards the protection mechanism and the ideology of conservation. As Sharad Kumar who conducted research for TCF’s project on the conflict situation in Corbett writes in his article, “unless the benefits from conservation outweigh the disadvantages, local people cannot be expected to help protect the tiger” and as our Chairman, Dilip Khatau said many years ago in a media interview “unless people demand ecological protection, Governments will not provide it.”
TCF  has endeavoured to base its interventions on this philosophy. The results are  for all  to see. We do not claim the entire credit as there are many other contributory factors like Corbett’s unique terrain, and the good, sincere efforts of the Forest Department, but we do want our efforts to be noticed. This is necessary not merely as an encouragement to our team, but to highlight that all is not lost. If what has been achieved in Corbett can be replicated elsewhere the Tiger would bounce back as a species. All we want to say, is that it is still possible. 
                                                                                       

G.D. Sarin