Project In New Delhi Will Promote Wildlife Conservation
This week, the government of New Delhi said that they will continue funding "Project Tiger" which was established in order to promote wildlife conservation throughout the nation. This project will cost roughly Rs 600 crores which I believe is somewhere in the range of 153 million U.S. dollars.Following a CCEA meeting, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram mentioned that, "The money would be used to rehabilitate people living in core area or critical tiger habitat and implement safeguard and retrofitting measures in the interest of wildlife conservation."
Chidambaram also mentioned that the project would provide rehabilitation and resettlement for various DNT's, or denotified tribes. The funds will also help protect tigers and other wildlife that are outside of the tiger reserves and in areas of forest.
"The money would also be spent on establishing eight new tiger reserves in states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Assam," Chidambaram mentioned.
Project Tiger also intends to create a basic foundation for promoting the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). It also looks as though the funding will provide a dedicated facility at the Wildlife Institute of India.
I had not heard of Project Tiger until recently, but it appears that they have some serious financial backing for it. If anyone has any further information about this plan then I would definitely be interested in hearing about it.
Labels: wildlife conservation
posted by William at
7:07 PM
3 Comments:
We, in India, feel unhappy that lot of money has already been spent in the name of tiger conservation by the government and NGOs supported by foreign funds, with little impact on the ground. The tiger numbers are again precarious.
So do you think that the money is not being used efficiently or that projects like these are unnecessary altogether? I am curious because an issue like this is rather new to me and I am sure that you are more educated about it than I am.
The money is not being efficiently used. Very little of it reaches the grassroot level-forest guards-who are physically protecting the forest from poachers and also keeping illegal activities in the forest at bay.
That said, we must remember that India is trying to protect the tiger in its natural habitat and not in a created reserve or a fenced man-made park. This makes the whole process very complicated and nearly Herculian considering the milling population around the protected reserves.
One of the reasons( according to my reasoning) tiger numbers are precarious despite the money pumped in, could be that tiger being an internationally loved animal, personalities and egos take stage when it comes to utilisation of funds. Down the line, awareness is often not there that the tiger is just a symbol and that, what we are protecting is its natural habitat.(Otherwise one can merely breed them in captivity-tigers breed well in captivity).
It would be interesting to hear others' views about the matter.
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