In The Name Of Tiger

With growing concerns and debates around climate change, Tigers (Panthera Tigris) have found their reputation as the ‘charismatic megafauna’ at the centre stage of various deliberations around ecology, biodiversity and wildlife conservation. There is a larger consensus that campaigns to save tigers are vital for the long-term preservation of ecology and wildlife affected by its extinction. In this background, policies based on unscientific, exclusionary approaches seek to justify the displacement of Indigenous peoples, ironically in the name of conservation, from the very forests and ecosystem that they have preserved for centuries.

India, as the custodian of 70% of the world’s tiger population, thus finds itself in a paradoxical situation. While the nation prides itself on its role as a protector of the magnificent tiger, this alleged conservation success story has come at a significant social cost- that is, the systemic marginalization of adivasis and forest-dwelling communities.

This approach is contrary to settled law and policy, that have recognized the historical injustice committed on adivasis and forest-dwelling communities, including misguided conservation strategies that have sought to commercially exploit forests and alienated indigenous people from their ancestral land and habitat. In fact, recently, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) issued a directive to all tiger-bearing states to relocate Adivasi communities, which can result in the displacement of approximately 90,000 families, or around 400,000 people, from their land and habitats in the name of tiger conservation.1 In fact, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes has taken cognizance of the issue, and sought a report from the NTCA on the issue.

Read the full report here.