Cattle Compensation
At over a billion humans, one out of every 7 persons on earth today lives in India1. Compare this with 347 million who called this country their home in 19472, when India gained independence. Since forests occupy 21% of India’s total geographical area3, a large number of these people live in the proximity of wildlife.
Since independence, forests have been cleared to make more space available for housing, agriculture, development projects etc. Therefore, animals and humans today are getting uncomfortably close to each other. This has given rise to conflicts. While on one side wild animals like wild boar, elephants, blue bull and other herbivores cause economic losses to farmers, the local communities in retaliation resort to measures like poisoning, snaring and killing wild animals to avoid further economic losses.
Tigers face a similar situation of conflict at a number of locations in the country. For a poor farmer loosing her or his cattle often means loosing a major livelihood source. At many locations the killed cattle is poisoned and when the predator returns to consume the left over, its death is inevitable. The situation had aggravated in some areas.
The logical solution to this menace is intervention by the government to provide compensation to the farmer. But this does not provide immediate relief to the farmers as the official procedures are time-consuming. It is therefore essential that such cases are handled in a prompt manner to avoid any retaliatory action.
Reacting to the situation, in the year 1997, WWF-India initiated a cattle compensation scheme around Corbett Tiger Reserve (TR), in partnership with local NGOs. Reports of poisoning incidents were also received from Ranthambore TR and subsequently the WWF-India Cattle compensation scheme was extended to this TR in 1999. WWF-India’s funds are regularly transferred to the local NGO's, after assessing value of livestock. Following the laid down procedures, payments are made to the beneficiaries. Compensation is usually paid within 48 hours of kill to avoid any delay that might lead to poisoning of the predator.
This practice may not have led to peaceful co-existence between humans and tigers but certainly has benefited the tiger to a large extent and also provided some relief to those who lost cattle.
Source:
12009 World Population data sheet, Population Reference Bureau
2Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt of India, 2006
3Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt of India, 2009
Since independence, forests have been cleared to make more space available for housing, agriculture, development projects etc. Therefore, animals and humans today are getting uncomfortably close to each other. This has given rise to conflicts. While on one side wild animals like wild boar, elephants, blue bull and other herbivores cause economic losses to farmers, the local communities in retaliation resort to measures like poisoning, snaring and killing wild animals to avoid further economic losses.
Tigers face a similar situation of conflict at a number of locations in the country. For a poor farmer loosing her or his cattle often means loosing a major livelihood source. At many locations the killed cattle is poisoned and when the predator returns to consume the left over, its death is inevitable. The situation had aggravated in some areas.
The logical solution to this menace is intervention by the government to provide compensation to the farmer. But this does not provide immediate relief to the farmers as the official procedures are time-consuming. It is therefore essential that such cases are handled in a prompt manner to avoid any retaliatory action.
Reacting to the situation, in the year 1997, WWF-India initiated a cattle compensation scheme around Corbett Tiger Reserve (TR), in partnership with local NGOs. Reports of poisoning incidents were also received from Ranthambore TR and subsequently the WWF-India Cattle compensation scheme was extended to this TR in 1999. WWF-India’s funds are regularly transferred to the local NGO's, after assessing value of livestock. Following the laid down procedures, payments are made to the beneficiaries. Compensation is usually paid within 48 hours of kill to avoid any delay that might lead to poisoning of the predator.
This practice may not have led to peaceful co-existence between humans and tigers but certainly has benefited the tiger to a large extent and also provided some relief to those who lost cattle.
Source:
12009 World Population data sheet, Population Reference Bureau
2Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt of India, 2006
3Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt of India, 2009
Diminishing forest cover often brings humans and wildlife uncomfortably close to each other
Cattle owner with his animal killed by a tiger