Views | Selling the tiger to save it

India is the exclusive home to the Bengal tiger, the most commonly found subspecies of one of the most majestic animals found in the wild. The decline of the tiger population over the decades has been a matter of great concern - in 1973, the Union government led by Indira Gandhi launched Project Tiger with a view to preserve the tiger’s habitat and grow India’s tiger population.

Valmik Thapar, one of India’s foremost tiger conservationists and a critic of Project Tiger, published the book The Last Tiger in 2006, noting that despite significant efforts and investment by the government over three decades, the tiger population had not increased substantially. In fact, according to estimates released by the Union Environment and Forest Ministry’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2007, the tiger population may have declined since Mrs Gandhi’s Project Tiger was enunciated. Thapar lays the blame for this failure at the door of flawed government policy and an incompetent, apathetic bureaucracy.

In the same year that Thapar’s book was published, director of Liberty Institute Barun Mitra floated a radical-sounding idea to prevent the Bengal tiger from becoming extinct. He argued that India should sell the tiger to save it, promoting trade and industry around the tiger in the same way that cattle is reared with an eye on profit and commerce. The idea of ”selling” animals, especially endangered species - whether for tourism, or more starkly for medicinal or food consumption - seems immoral to some animal rights activists. Yet, without ”legalization” of such uses, poaching is likely to continue and even increase. The Endangered Species Act in the United States incentivized killing of endangered species, for if such species started living on private land, the owners feared their lands would be declared ”national property”. If animals, even endangered ones, are allowed to be the property of individuals and various commercial uses are permitted, there is a built-in incentive for the propagation of the species. In this way, various conservationist regulations become more effective.

Apart from having the world-renowned Khajuraho temples and important spiritual sites such as Ujjain and Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh is home to several tiger reserves and has India’s largest tiger population. Tourism to the state is on the rise - according to data issued by the state government, tourist inflow doubled since 2008 to over 4.4 lakhs in 2011. Madhya Pradesh has won several national awards for being a tourist-friendly state. The state government has adopted a policy of promoting tourism at its tiger reserves, and this has undoubtedly been a major contributor to tourism growth.

This policy has met with fierce opposition from several activists, who contend that such tourism will lead to more poaching. These critics say that MP’s tiger population has declined in the last decade, and attribute the decline to increased tourism. A public interest litigation was filed in the Supreme Court, demanding a comprehensive ban on tourism in Madhya Pradesh’s tiger reserves, specifically in the ”inviolate” areas of the forest, as defined by the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The state government and tourism advocates have been pitted against the NTCA and activists who believe that tourism should be banned. The Supreme Court’s decision will have far-reaching implications for the tourism and hotels industry in India - if the Court rules in favour of the NTCA, dozens of hotels, from those catering to backpackers to high-end luxury safari lodges will be forced to shut down. Not only are these establishments creating jobs for the local population, they make the locals invested in the preservation and protection of the tiger from poachers, for the wild cat is the biggest tourist attraction, and the livelihood of the locals is tied to growth in tourism. There is a competition taking place between MP’s tiger reserves on increasing tiger numbers - a tigress giving birth to two cubs last month at Panna National Park was much celebrated, and the other parks will now feel the need to grow their tiger population too so that they can continue to attract tourists.

The wildlife tourism industry in Madhya Pradesh is still at a nascent stage and probably won’t survive this kind of a body blow. An overnight shutdown of the industry by legal diktat would shake the confidence of business owners and investors. The state government has been selling the tiger to save it, but has met with hostile opposition from the Union government that is intent on setting tiger conservation policy for the entire country from Delhi, based on a law enacted four decades ago. Over forty years, such central control over tiger conservation has yielded results that can be charitably described as disappointing and unsatisfactory, going by the Union government’s own numbers. But both the Union government and its band of activists want more of the same. It would be reasonable to define rules and regulations on tourism in the so-called ”inviolate” areas of the forest, but outright banning is an extreme step that is certain to fail in helping save the tiger. A similar dynamic is playing out in nuclear power, where social activists want outright bans, instead of arguing for sound regulation and stringent nuclear waste management policies.

There is no empirical evidence to conclude that tourism and wildlife conservation are mutually exclusive - in fact, global experience shows that by making local communities invested in preserving and protecting wildlife, tourism can create powerful incentives that promote vibrant wildlife. In principle, the tale of tiger conservation and efforts to promote tiger tourism is analogous to other policy debates affecting the economy and other issues of national importance, such as defence, where on issue after issue, the Union government has favoured centralization and state control over decentralization and private sector participation.

India needs to sell the tiger to save it - and that includes allowing tourism so that people can observe the magnificent tiger from closer quarters rather than just read about it and see it in coffee table books. Some ”bio-ethicists” would like to see animals have rights similar to those of humans, and view any commercial ”exploitation” as unacceptable. This view of total segregation is likely to lead to more extinct species, because the underlying market demand for such animals will not go away and the ”tragedy of commons” would kick in - nobody would have a real stake to preserve them. Therefore, if our Union government sticks to policies that are known to have failed, sadly for India and the world, the Bengal tiger may be consigned to history.

Rajeev Mantri is director of GPSK Investment Group and Harsh Gupta is director of Catallaxy Finance