Burning Issues
Non Sequiturs…
These comments arise from reading
The Jhurjhura Paradigm : Lessons from an absolute tragedy written by Russell Crisante Fernandes, who is one of many journalists both in India and abroad who have pegged stories about tiger tourism to the recent death of a tigress in Bandhavarh. While I
would agree that this event is an “absolute” – and, I might add, unnecessary – “tragedy” I do not understand the use of the term “paradigm” in this context. Furthermore to use this death to discuss tourism issues actually obscures the possibility of learning
useful lessons.
It is not only journalists who are creating this smokescreen. The director of India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority somewhat ingeniously commented in a recent interview “In Bandhavgarh, tiger tourism was seen at its extreme when a tigress was recently
killed by a vehicle. Shamefully, forest staff and local administration is involved. This when his own report of the incident says “there are enough arguments/evidences which strongly indicate” that two government vehicles were involved in the accident. It
is well known that the final deathblow was accidentally delivered the following morning by a forest department vehicle that had gone to check on the injured tigress. So am I missing something here? Forest officials in a protected area at night count as ‘tiger
tourism’….!
So why does this shocking incident generate so many articles about wildlife/tiger tourism? Tourism is an issue that certainly requires better management in some places but in relation to this event it is a complete red herring; it has eclipsed more serious
issues raised by the tragic consequences of inappropriate - and illegal - behaviour by members of the forest department and other officials.
Too many journalists have jumped on this story to write about the problems of tourism as though tourist behaviour had a bearing on the tigress’ death. Indeed if it were not for tourism, this would probably have been yet another death that the Forest department
managed to hide from public view. This exposure is perhaps the reason why some members of the forest department sound as thought they wish to ban tourism in some of our National Parks?
In most cases the journalists also seem to be writing without full information: for example, Bandhavgarh now has restricted routes so a rush to the meadows is much less of an issue. The Field Director also closely interacts with responsible tour operators there
and things are working better. In another article an entry ticketing system is suggested; this is already in place for most areas.
As with Panna, where department officials blamed researchers and everything other than themselves for the loss of over 40 tigers, forest officers in Bandhavgarh tried to pin the blame on tourism rather than examine their own failings. Fortunately the truth
came out, thanks largely to an exceptional Field Director and local support and interest.
But why are so many conservationists, journalists and sympathisers only looking at this tragic incident through tourism glasses. This misses the far deeper and more worrying aspects of the way our wildlife is managed. The security of large animals like the
tiger is almost entirely in the hands of the forest department; they alone have control of wildlife protection and refuse to share responsibility; they are reluctant to even beneficially use expertise from outside the system. But when things go wrong they
are neither accountable nor do they accept responsibility!
This one-model-for-all – and the model itself – need to be seriously re-evaluated and we should be reading articles that debate these pertinent questions raised by death of the Jhujhura female, not more comments on tourist behaviour. It was, after all, quickly
established that this death was not tourism related.
The inability to stem the tiger's slide to extinction is a far more complicated, profound problem; it is in large part systemic and therefore much harder to correct. An event such as this, where the forest department have directly – if accidentally - killed
one of the few remaining breeding females, could have provided the opportunity to raise and discuss these issues. This would be far more appropriate and useful than the endless tourism debates that deflect us from more creative conservation thinking.
Unless we come up with some solutions soon and force changes into the system, tiger tourism debates will anyway be a moot point.
Joanna Van Gruisen
Baavan – bagh aap aur van
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