Tiger Dialogues is a series of moderated panel discussions co-hosted by WWF-India, WCS-India, and Panthera that will place tiger conservation in India in its historical context, bringing current conversations into sharp focus, and broaden opportunities and constituencies for tiger conservation.
2022 is a landmark year for tiger conservation. It marks the Chinese lunar calendar's Year of the Tiger. It is also the year by which the political leadership of thirteen tiger range countries boldly committed to "double tiger numbers" at a high-profile summit in St. Petersburg in 2010. Therefore, in 2022, nations, organisations, and people who are vested in the conservation of tigers and their threatened ecosystems are taking stock of initiatives and efforts of the past decade, and formulating strategies and plans to expand the tigers' range and ensure their survival.
The seventh session of the Tiger Dialogues featured a panel of experts who deliberated on a range of questions about ungulate ecology, ungulate habitat relationships and the conservation of key species. What drives heterogeneity in distribution and density of wild ungulates at biome, regional, and local scales? What can we learn from recent research about conditions under which ungulates thrive, and what stressors are most likely to affect their populations? How and where should forests and grasslands be managed for wild herbivores – with the goal of promoting tiger populations – and are there opportunities to align or reconcile such management strategies with broader ecological processes and biodiversity conservation goals? And finally, since wild herbivores are also "preyed upon" by humans, how prevalent is local hunting, what are its drivers, and what strategies can be employed to ensure wild herbivores persist within and outside of Protected Areas?
In a country of over 1.4 billion people and about 3,000 wild tigers, there will inevitably be shared spaces where people and tigers need to ‘get along’! But getting along may not be tenable in the long term unless the risks posed by tigers to people are low and the costs and losses that they incur from conflict with tigers are efficaciously addressed. The persistence of tiger populations in human dominated landscapes will require that the species’ essential life history needs are met -- sufficiently large habitat areas, areas with dense cover where they can shelter from people, wild prey in adequate numbers, and low rates of mortality from poaching and retaliatory killing. Space sharing by people and tigers also ultimately requires human benevolence, or at least the willingness and ability to tolerate tigers in environments where people live or eke out livelihoods, placing an even greater burden on economically and socially disadvantaged communities.
The session was moderated by Sejal Worah and the panelists were MD Madhusudan, Ravi Chellam, Asmita Kabra, and Sharachchandra Lele.
In the fifth session of the tiger dialogues, social scientists and conservationists examined; what does it mean to successfully conserve tigers – and what lessons can we draw from tiger habitats across India – that have included or excluded people? What lessons can we draw from India’s experiments in decentralized forest governance to vest greater agency in communities for use and management? And where do opportunities (or key levers of change) lie to reconcile the diverse interests and needs of people and tigers to sustainably manage forest use and conserve wildlife in multi-use and multi-tenure landscapes?
The session was moderated by Prerna Singh Bindra and the panelists were George Schaller, AJT Johnsingh, Dale Miquelle, and Pranav Chanchani.
The session explore, the tiger's life history to understand how they have adapted to ever-changing landscapes, and to the limits of behavioral adaptation, beyond which the species’ demography is likely to be adversely impacted. How do attributes and stimuli from the external environment drive diverse aspects of behaviour – foraging, breeding, territory maintenance, dispersal, and space use? How do interactions with other carnivores, the distribution, and the occurrence of herbivores (prey species), in combination with environmental factors, explain tiger space use? And how do tigers calibrate their relationships with habitats, prey, and competitors in response to exposure to humans, land use change, and other anthropogenic perturbations?
The panelists painted an intricate picture of how tigers both shape their environment, and how their behavior and populations are shaped by the environment. We will also be regaled by stories from diverse field sites from near and afar, that will offer us more insights into the world of tigers. These conversations ultimately extended our understanding of the extraordinary challenges that tigers have faced and conveyed the message about what needs to urgently be done to perpetuate the future of this apex predator in India and beyond.
The panel comprised of Shri. H.V Girisha, Uttara Mendiratta, Merwyn Fernandes, Diogo Verissimo and moderated by John Goodrich
In the third session of the tiger dialogues, leading large carnivore conservation experts, conservation scientists, experienced wildlife managers, and wildlife trade experts came together to deliberate on a range of vexed issues about poaching, reducing demand and approaches to break the cycle of and illegal tiger trade. Often seizures are considered a yardstick to measure the success of deterring illegal wildlife trade but, there is a need to emphasize the prevention of these crimes, thus keeping the tiger alive. The panellists elaborated on three intertwined issues. What is the extent and magnitude of tiger poaching? Does using innovative approaches such as technology-aided patrolling help secure vulnerable populations, and when can law enforcement be considered effective? In addition, what approaches can be employed to shift human behaviour and decrease the demand for wild meat and wildlife products?
The panellists for the session were Gary Tabor, Uma Ramakrishnan, Divya Vasudev, Milind Pariwakam and moderated by Dipankar Ghose
In the second session of Tiger Dialogues, conservationists with expertise and experience in genetics, landscape genetics, ecology, corridor advocacy and policy deliberated upon the causes and consequences of habitat fragmentation on tiger populations. This panel laid out urgent steps and policy interventions that need to be taken to reduce the impacts of fragmentation on India’s tiger landscapes, now and in the future. The panel also emphasized on durability of multi-sectoral partnerships and coalitions of scientists, conservationists, and the public can be built and sustained to advance inclusive strategies and actions for connectivity conservation in fractured and fast-changing landscapes.
The panellists for the session included Sonali Ghosh, MK Ranjithsinh, Mahesh Rangarajan, Vijaya Ramadas Mandala and moderated by Raza Kazmi
In this session, environmental historians and conservationists came together to discuss how the past has shaped the present and is expected to influence the future of our national animal. In the exordium, the panellists discussed the now-infamous tiger hunts and their disastrous legacy that would ultimately engender provisions to protect the species. The panel examined the role and efficacy of laws, policies, and institutions in reversing the tiger's fortunes in post-Independence India and draw lessons to help sustain tigers in landscapes with fractured and intertwined geographies.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this forum do no necessarily reflect the positions of the organizations/institutions that the speakers represent or the organizations hosting this event.
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