Tiger Trust India & WCWC work together to help protect wild tigers in India
WCWC's large Inflatable Tiger Cub, called "Bara Bacha" (Big Baby) In India, shown with students and staff at a girls' school In Delhi, 1999. Pradeep Sankhala, Director of Tiger Trust India, is kneeling in centre.
For the last three years the Wilderness Committee has been working with Tiger Trust India to help save the endangered tiger in India. This work has been supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
The aim of WCWC-Tiger Trust India's Save-the-Tiger partnership program is to conduct public education and community-based on-the-ground projects in India to help ensure that the Indian tiger continues to survive in its natural environment. We chose to focus our work on the Bengal tiger because we believe it's the most "save-able" of the five tiger subspecies that survive today. At a death rate of 300 to 400 tigers a year from a remaining population base estimated to be only 2,000 to 3,000, only heroic conservation measures will save these tigers from going extinct in the wild.
Demonstration of solar cooker at Bandhavgarh lodge. Over one-half of the food at this lodge Is now prepared using solar cookers. In 1999, Tiger Trust India purchased a dozen solar cookers for villages near the tiger reserve. TTI Is also testing and producing a cook-book featuring adaptations of traditional recipes to use this tree-saving technology.
As with most endangered and threatened species, the Bengal tiger faces the dual threats of direct killing and habitat loss. Direct killing, although illegal, is carried out by poachers paid to supply tiger bones and organs to the Chinese, Japanese and Korean traditional medicine markets. In December, 1999, a poacher near Bandhavgarh National Park was also caught with tiger skin, which shocked conservationists who thought the trade in tiger skins had stopped! Local villagers also kill tigers to prevent loss of their cattle by tiger predation.
The loss of tiger habitat is also of grave concern. As large predators, tigers need large natural areas with an abundance of prey to survive. Not enough tiger habitat is protected, and even areas in the tiger reserves and parks are subject to problems such as poaching of tiger prey. Habitat threats also include mining, logging of the forests for fuelwood and over-grazing by free-ranging cattle and goats of the habitat needed by tiger prey species. There are an estimated 300 million India! For each of these problems there are - and short-term solutions.
Short-term solutions include strengthening law enforcement to combat poaching and raising the Tiger Reserve entrance -fees paid by international tourists so that compensation can be offered to villagers near the reserves who lose cattle to tigers. The long-term solutions must include increasing the ways that local people can economically benefit from tiger-related tourism, providing solar cookers to reduce the demand for fuelwood, and motivating the people who live near tiger reserves to becomes conservationists. It must also include reductions in the international demand for traditional tiger medicines and tiger skins.
Highlights of WCWC & Tiger Trust India's 1999 Tiger Campaign Activities
Over 300 people participate in WCWC's third annual Save-the-Tiger Walk held In Vancouver's Stanley Park In October, 1999. It was the most successful walk so far, raising over $10,000.
School children carry banners at the "Love-the-Tiger Walk" held on St. Valentine's Day, 1999 in Delhi, India. It was the first annual walk held by Tiger Trust India and made national news in India.
At the beginning of 1999, WCWC's Tiger Campaigner, Anthony Marr, together with several WCWC volunteers, spent several months in India working with Tiger Trust India staff on several joint projects. WCWC took along its giant 40 foot long, 16 foot high inflatable tiger cub (originally created for WCWC's first Save-the-Tiger Walk in Vancouver in 1997). School children in India dubbed the cub Bara Bacha (big baby). Bara Bacha was a big hit with 3,000 students in 10 different Indian schools and at several conferences, including an India-wide Rotary Club Conference. It succeeded in receiving wide media coverage, highlighting the cause of protecting India's tiger.
The biggest Bara Bacha event was a "Love-the Tiger Walk" from the Delhi Zoo to the headquarters of Project Tiger, a government program to protect tigers. Children, singing a "Save-the-Tiger" song, paraded through busy thoroughfares and made national news!
Tiger Trust and WCWC also spent several weeks travelling to villages around Kanha and Bandhavgarh tiger reserves, meeting with local people to introduce and test the use of solar ovens as an alternative heat source to fuelwood for cooking.
Tiger Trust India and WCWC staff worked with a local carpenter to construct two large experimental solar cookers, improving upon the design of the small ones brought from Canada. One was a communal sized solar oven capable of simultaneously cooking up to 20 pots of rice or other water-based dishes.
The other incorporated a shallow parabolic mirror designed to heat a suspended hot plate for frying purposes. The solar cookers were well received. Now Tiger Trust is testing ovens, purchasing and distributing them locally and developing a "solar" cookbook for villagers' use.
In a series of meetings, local village leaders informed Tiger Trust and WCWC about many concerns, including cattle being killed by tigers and the lack of compensation for such losses. Village leaders supported the idea of raising tiger reserve entrance fees for foreigners to a level comparable to other countries where National Parks have rare and endangered wildlife, provided the additional revenues are kept and used locally. Currently, tourists are charged only $2.50 per day to visit the tiger reserves. Entrance fees for wildlife parks are up to ten times higher elsewhere.
Tiger skin found in the possession of a poacher near Bandhavgarh National Park, December 1999. Subsequently, local police uncovered the tiger's bones buried in the park, highlighting the need to increase efforts to stop poaching.
Additional money raised could be used not only to compensate local villagers but also to support park officials in increasing their anti-poaching efforts.
To help raise funds for our joint campaign effort to save India's tigers, for the last three years WCWC has annually organized a "Save-the-Tiger Walk" in Vancouver's Stanley Park. It always takes place on the third Saturday of October. In 1998 heavy rains diminished attendance and a gust of wind carried away Bara Bacha (although volunteers rescued it before it blew into the ocean!) 1999 was our most successful Save-the-Tiger Walk, with over 300 people participating and over $10,000 raised. This year the Walk will be expanded to raise awareness about the need to save all endangered species.
In September of 1999, Anthony Man, who had been WCWC's tiger campaigner for three years, left WCWC to start his own organization, Help Our Planet Earth (HOPE). WCWC has hired a new campaigner, Jacqueline Pruner, who, in addition to heading WCWC's CIDA-funded Saving India's Endangered Tiger program, will take on other WCWC campaigns to help protect Canadian species at risk.
