Sawai Madhopur, 16 Aug : There many problems which an established Tiger Reserve faces most of the time, like monitoring issues and shortage of staff etc. but there are Five Major Problems which every Tiger Reserve faces almost every time so let's discuss them.
1. Encroachment and Illegal Tree cutting : Encroachment in forest is one of the major problems, even protected areas like Tiger reserves also has this problem, people slowly start to encroach upon and inside the protected area and put their establishments in forest area, and gradually claim their right on it. Most of the encroachment are for monetary gains, set up of illegal farms, illigal resorts, illegal hotels are also part of encroachment, not only residential huts. Along with encroachment they start chopping down trees also, mainly illegal wood mafia are behind these acts. Tree cutting is also one of the major problems faced by a Tiger Reserve. Recently many trees are chopped down from MHTR.
2. Illegal Grazing of Domestic Cattle inside Tiger Reserves : Illegal grazing is another major problem in tiger reserves, even many tourist complain that instead of Tigers we only saw Cattle in the Reserve. Grasslands of protected areas are ment for wild herbivores but if domestic cattle graze on it there will be scarcity of food for the herbivores, then they will move out of the protected area and carnivores will also follow them, ultimately there will be increase human-tiger, human-leopard and man-animal conflict. A video of tiger chasing a cattle went viral earlier.
3. Illegal Mining : Many Tiger Reserves are targeted by Illegal Stone and Sand mafia, illegal Sand mafia pulls out (Bajri) fine sand/gravel from River sides and destroys habitat of Ghariyal, Crocodile, many species of turtles, many species of birds including indian skimmer as they nests and lay thier eggs in the fine sand. Some stone mafia has even chopped down large hills.
4. Voluntary Relocation : Voluntary relocation is must for Tiger Reserves people residing inside can be moved out only by the process of voluntary relocation, sometimes scarcity of Budget, sometimes Politics hamper the process of voluntary relocation, Ranthambhore and Kaila Devi has many villages, MHTR has 16 villages, Sariska also has villages,
5. Illegal Poaching : Poaching of Wild Animals is one of the major prob Ramgarh Vishdhari has 8 villages and as many as around 5000 people are living in it. lem which is faced by almost every Tiger Reserve, Tigers, Leopards, Pangolins and many other wild animals are constant target of poachers, Poaching is an organised crime and fighting against it require high level of intelligence and information network, and coordination between forest authorities and locals and wildlife lovers, but it seems its lacking in Rajasthan.
These problems are only tip of the iceberg, in the depth there are thousands of problems, like, unnecessary political pressure on departmental officers, illegal safari, illegal trespassing of forest, corrupt forest staff, loose monitoring, water hole and security wall scams, tenders to corrupt people, illegal tendu leaves collection, black marketing of safari tickets etc. etc. and etc. the long list will continue.
"The solution to these problems lies in whole system change and that is literally impossible, until then we can only watch and are ready to help the department if they need."
