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closeNew hopes for Tiger preservation!
Posted by micromohan on 16 Sep 2010 at 19:59 GMT
Congratulations to the authors for generating new and positive hopes for Tigers preservation.
As the authors suggest, immediate attention and efforts to protect the tigers in the key source sites or "hot spots" is extremely important to prevent the further decline in the existing number of Tigers. If the surprisingly low estimated costs of preserving these source sites is realistic, it should encourage the policy makers of the corresponding countries to strongly implement the Tiger conservation policies.
In addition to the cost estimation, the authors have done excellent efforts to pool together the source sites or hot spots of the remaining high Tiger density areas around the world.
I addition to the above positive comments, I have the following general concerns from this report:
1. I agree that India has undertaken several initiatives to preserve their 'National animal - Tiger' for decades but due to lack of strict implementation of the policies and without the comprehensive analysis of the best possible solutions, it has equally failed to prevent the constant decline in Tiger numbers. The fact that overall Tiger numbers are decreasing year after year in India clearly indicates the efforts are directly or indirectly not adequate. In contrary, the authors seem to laud India in spite of it's failing and inadequate efforts and commitment to protect the Tigers.
2. According to the cost estimate numbers listed in the "Table S1 - SOURCE SITES BY COUNTRY" which is in the supplementary information of this report, in a shocking surprise, 15 out of 18 source sites in India (6-Dudhwa, 10-Melghat and 16-Similipal, being the exceptions) are spending "dollar-to-dollar" with the 'estimated cost for protection and monitoring'!
Is this really possible that a country is spending "dollar-to-dollar" of the authors estimated costs in most of it's source sites???
I am interested to know if there is any error or bias either in the 'author estimated costs' OR the 'reported present expenditure', especially with respect to source sites in India. With all the rest of the source sites in the list (except India), there seem to be no such exact "dollar-to-dollar" correlation at even a single source site.
With the current timing of this report, I wish and hope that this report will have a positive and realistic impact at 'The Tiger Summit'. I also hope that the summit will recognize the potential danger of 'tiger parts trade' in countries like China, adopt very strict policies and get a binding agreement of all participating and non-participating countries.
Thank you,
Mohan