Forest scraps

conflicts over grazing are nothing new to the Ranthambhore National Park (see also). There is a long history of strife and distrust between the forest departments and the villages surrounding almost all national parks in India. The central flaw is the forest officials' assumption that the villagers surrounding protected forests are enemies of the nation. Their reason: teeming villagers and their large, unproductive livestock are having a free lunch out of the little that remains of India's forest.

Let us, for the sake of assumption, accept this viewpoint, casting aside all moral, scientific and ethical scales. Then the task of protecting and conserving India's forests is doomed -- even if the forest department's everlasting demand for more staff, money and equipment is met. When elite commandos and elaborate special task forces can't catch the sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, then our ill-trained, ill-equipped and impoverished forest guards are fighting for a lost cause.

That said, it couldn't be disputed that overgrazing is a real threat. People who graze their animals in the forests are poor, marginalised, and often exploited by politicians, the mining lobby, the timber mafia and poachers. Foresters are entirely ineffective against the powerful people, and they prefer to blame the villagers. There will be no headway if the foresters don't engage them, learn to appreciate their needs.

To do this, the World Bank and forest departments thought they had the perfect solution: ecodevelopment programmes. These aim to keep the villagers out of the national parks by providing them alternative livelihoods like poultry, or giving them lpg cylinders to prevent them from using fuelwood. Like all such programmes that hope to involve people in government's fine schemes, implementation is poor, ineffective.

The answer to people-park conflicts must be found more seriously. And it must be found in the serious engagement of people in the business of park management. Take Ranthambhore, a booming tourist location. Luxury hotels are springing up in the park's vicinity. But tourism, however welcome, is not asked to give anything back to the park or the communities in its vicinity. If the villages received, say, a tax for every tourist that came to the park, they would have a stake in its protection. Today, the villages feel ripped by the forests department and tourists who corner the power and the glory, and the tiger has become a symbol of the elite for them. If the battle lines remain drawn, be prepared for more violent clashes and greater distress to all.