At a recent conference a researcher studying the politics of wildlife conservation in India remarked that the worst thing that could happen to an Indian forest is if tigers lived in it. He was basing his observation on the use of state power to relocate people, curtail access to forest produce, and the use of out-dated science to justify protection. Walston et al 2010 do not allay any fears that such centralised systems will in due course erode. The paper’s singular focus on tigers and a summary dismissal of other stakeholders and entities within ‘source sites’, suggests a narrow, albeit pragmatic program. Their analysis ignores all the nuanced understandings of conservation that has gone before. Debates in conservation science has evolved sufficiently that it is a surprise to read that ‘conflict with local people needs to be mitigated’. The authors ignore years of published literature and experience when they write that ‘while the scale of the challenge is enormous,… the complexity of effective implementation is not: commitments should shift to focus on protecting tigers at spatially well-defined priority sites, supported by proven best practices of law enforcement, wildlife management, and scientific monitoring.’

Such techno-managerial approaches to real world socio-political problems are reflective of the power that such rhetoric has within international conservation institutions rather than on-ground realities or a thorough understanding of issues. The authors’ belief that bringing large pots of money to address the problem is sufficient is setting back the conservation debate. Such analysis plays into the hands of state agencies that are bent on controlling large landscapes that have people living within them, people whose histories and livelihoods are part of the landscape. This history and culture cannot be easily ‘mitigated’ nor can livelihoods be bought by the increased amounts that these source sites will soon attract after the summit in Russia.

ATREE (www.atree.org) has worked for years in one of the source sites that the paper mentions: BRT wildlife sanctuary. Our experience has shown that tiger numbers have increased over the last few years despite the continued presence of people within the landscape. Our ecological studies have clearly demonstrated that harvest of fruits and honey has had no impact on regeneration of these species. The single biggest threat to the forest is the invasion of a weed, Lantana camara, encouraged by the suppression of historical fire use, which was a customary indigeneous practice. The suppression of fire has not only dramatically increased lantana density and coverage, it has also increased the density of hemiparasites resulting in the mortality of adult trees. The spread of lantana is truncating the population growth of tree species by preventing seedlings from growing through the dense lantana growth. The cessation of traditional practice and the displacement of indigeneous people has given rise to an entirely avoidable ecological outcome. This suggests that the path of ‘intensive protection’ using out-dated conservation practices such as relocation and curtailment of access is a wrong one.

I suggest that the debate include other disciplines and stakeholders to make some reasoned arguments. One such argument should centre around the possibility that these landscapes could have tigers along with the presence of indigeneous people who might be made full partners in this endeavour to increase tiger numbers. We do not always have to visualise local people as being in ‘conflict’ with tigers. BRT has shown us that tiger numbers has increased in the landscape. The use of situated local knowledge for the improvement of habitat of the tiger and its prey, and the possibility of local communities protecting biodiversity could offer new conservation models. Conserving tigers forever cannot be done through dictat or coercion. It is time now for a more democratic conservation process.