The Tiger is symbol of wilderness and well being of the ecosystem. By conserving and saving tigers the entire ecosystem is conserved as the tiger is the apex predator that keeps the food chain in balance by preventing the forests from being grazed to decimation by herbivores which would multiply unsustainably in its absence. At the same time, the tiger cannot survive without a minimum level of herbivores to prey on and un-fragmented forest cover. Saving tiger, therefore, is analogous to saving the ecosystem, which is crucial for man's own survival.  

India is home for over 50% of the world’s wild tiger population and the numbers have dramatically risen from less than 2000 in the 1970s when tiger’s were critically endangered. However, with even 3500 tigers in the Indian jungles today, one cannot say that tigers are not threatened by extinction. Tigers are facing an increasing threat from poaching due to their high value in the Asian markets. The poverty of the people who live in and around tiger habitats and the high price paid for tiger parts continue to pose an increasing threat to the tiger. Today, with instances like Sariska; where the ENTIRE tiger population has been wiped out due to poaching; and with major development construction work being undertaken in some National Parks and with the case of the Sahara group acquiring land in the extremely sensitive ecosystem of the Sunderban National Park, we cannot complacently believe that the tiger is safe.  

It is essential at this stage to clarify that when the threat of extinction is being talked about, the reference is to tigers in the wild and not to those held and reared in captivity. Indeed their number is as high as 12,000 in the United States alone, a country who’s native is not a tiger. To put it in perspective, the United States has almost four times the number of tigers in Indian jungles.

Before we go on to a formal economic analysis of tiger conservation, it is imperative that we are aware of the main factors contributing to the declining of tiger populations. The various reasons that are responsible for the fall in tiger population in India are:    

               1.      Poaching of tigers

2.     Shrinkage of tiger land due to agricultural expansion

3.     Exploitation of Forest Products

4.     Destruction of prey animals

5.     Poisoning for protection of cattle

6.     Developmental Projects

The WWF and other wildlife conservation organizations, believe that shrinkage in habitat is the single largest factor threatening tiger populations. Tiger habitats are constantly shrinking due to agricultural expansion, livestock rearing in their habitats, exploitation of forest products, forest fires, development projects and other human activities.  

Recently, it has been established that the trade in tiger bones, destined for use in Oriental medicine outside India's borders, is posing a threat as large, if not larger, than habitat loss. Having decimated their own sources, Asian traditional medicine manufacturers are now targeting India for their supply of tiger bones. Poaching of tigers for the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) industry started in northern India in mid-1980 and this is reflected in the census trends.

The conservation policy in India involves measures that have significant economic impact on the tribes living in and around National Parks and lead to a Deprivation of Endowments. As is the case with all common resource, the forests are severely afflicted by a Tragedy of Commons situation. While the Demand-Supply Inequality directly threatens the tiger, Tragedy of Commons and Deprivation of Endowments act more through depletion of its habitat.

Tragedy of Commons and Deprivation of Endowments

The basic philosophy of the Indian conservation effort is not to interfere with nature. The survival of the tiger was looked at from the logic of it being at the apex of the food chain and hence it followed that the natural habitat was to be sustained. The resultant conservation policy was the declaration of tiger habitats as National Parks under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. A ‘core-buffer’ model was followed in the creation of National Parks. The core areas were freed from all sorts of human activities and the buffer areas were subjected to 'conservation oriented land use'.[i]  

Once an area is declared as a National Park, all human inhabitants must be removed from within the national park. Thus, the policy excludes local tribes that account for over three million living within as well at the periphery of the National Parks as they are perceived as a threat to the wildlife and forests. Further, they are denied access into forests for fodder, firewood and other needs. While it is required by law to relocate these settlements, in the Indian case there have been few instances where steps have been taken to rehabilitate these tribes or to ensure their livelihood. Removing them from their ancestral land thus puts them through great hardship and deprives them of their means of livelihood. This situation may be called a Deprivation of Endowments. It inevitably leads to conflicts between the interests of humans and wildlife/forest in these regions.  

The Tragedy of Commons analysis applies to the forests as no property rights are defined over them. The ‘commons’ here is the forest land/resources and the agents acting on the commons are the tribes that live in and around the forest. The forests offer substantial economic benefits from the exploitation of wildlife, timber, herbs and other forest products. These factors – the absence of property rights and the presence of economic benefits – lead to the formation of the Tragedy of Commons condition. The forests products face high market demand. Also, bringing virgin forest land under agriculture is alluring prospect for the tribes. Tribesmen are not necessarily myopic; they realise that unsustainable exploitation will render barren the resource that they depend on not just for livelihood, but also for other means of living. The heart of the problem lies in the fact that they cannot stop others from exploiting it due to absence of property rights. Each individual believes that his abstaining from over-exploiting the forests will not prevent others from doing so. This individualistic logic, generalised over the entire population based in forests, leads to unsustainable exploitation of the forests. Forests can also be looked at as public goods with sizable positive externality to the society at large. However, since no mechanism exists for bringing to tribes the value of the social benefit they generate by conserving the forests, they exploit it at a rate that is sub-optimal and unsustainable. While legal barriers[ii] prevent this process from taking visible forms such as felling of trees, they have limited effectiveness in hard-to-detect cases such as herb collection, poaching, hunting, etc. When one looks at this problem caused by absence of property rights together with the sustenance problems arising from Deprivation of Endowments, the economic forces acting against the tiger and the forests become apparent.  

Demand-Supply Inequality

Demand: Tigers are regarded with respect and awe in several Asian cultures. Their parts are demanded for trophies, cosmetics, ornaments, medicines and various other uses. Indeed, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), almost all parts of the tiger are used to cure a variety of diseases. While tiger bones are particularly demanded, the fat is used to cure rheumatism, eyes for cataract, blood for virility and so on. Further, the demand for tiger skin is quite significant and most of the demand for medicinal purposes comes from China and South-East Asia. A tiger in the international market can fetch as much as Rs. 50,000,000,  

Supply: The demand for tiger products has seen the eradication of the animal from Indonesian, South China, Bali and Sumatra. The supply of tiger products now originates primarily from India as it is one of the few nations of the world that still has tigers in numbers substantial enough for supplying to those who demand it. In India the supply chain is illegal and in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. However, significant illegal exports of tiger parts from India still takes place via illegal networks involving villages near the forests who actually kill the tiger, middlemen and city traders who pass it on to international smuggling mafias.  

Today, the demand for tiger products far out-strips the supply and this is reflected in the extraordinarily high price (as high as Rs. 50,000,000). This makes the tiger trade lucrative enough for the above mentioned nexus of wildlife traders to develop and for them to risk the stringent legal action associated with violation of the Wildlife Conservation Act, 1972, under which the tiger and other endangered species are protected. It must be further noted that such Demand-Supply Inequality is applicable not just to the tiger, but to a plethora of wildlife species and forest products.  

While the two causalities have been analysed independently of each other, in reality they act together and even reinforce each other. On one hand Tragedy of Commons and the displacement of tribes from their source of livelihood act towards the erosion of forests in general, while on the other the Demand Supply Inequality offers greater incentives to poach the tiger[iii].

Since the problem of conservation arises from economic forces, the policy that may mitigate the current crisis and conserve Indian forests and wildlife on a sustainable basis should effectively tackle these economic forces.

Captive Breeding

The first policy suggestion is the creation of an artificial supply of tiger for satiation of the demand from foreign markets. Such a supply can be created by captive breeding of the tiger for the expressed purpose of supplying it to the market. This farming technique has been successfully tried in the case of the alligator, which was driven to the brink of extinction due to high cosmetic value of its skin. This technique is also viable for tigers as they can be reared in captivity[iv]. Once a steady supply of tigers is achieved, the problem of Demand-Supply Inequality will be mitigated. At the same time, an increased supply will exert a downward pressure on prices, which would reduce incentives for the villager-city trader nexus that operates today to procure tiger parts illegally.  

Tigers can be supplied by private players as the profit is expected to be high. In case a private player model does not work out, the Government can take the initiative. The tribes, if given community rights over the forests, will also benefit as they can supply tigers to firms rearing tigers in captivity for an initial base from which the captive population will increase. However, such a system of captive supply of the tiger will require an effective and stringent regulatory framework provided by the Government.

Community-based management

Although the conservation effort had met with initial ecological success, it has been a complete failure in social terms from its very onset.

One way to theorize the problem is that if the tiger can become a resource to those who kill it, (particularly the immediate killers - the poachers from the tribes) killing the tiger will reduce considerably. This is to say that if the tiger can be used to generate an income stream for those who hunt it then they would not, at the minimum, hunt the tiger unsustainably. In case of the inhabitants near the forests, the forest is often the ONLY source of income apart from eco-tourism. Needless to say, the income levels are far from desirable. This further strengthens the argument for forest as a resource since its decimation would lead to the disappearance of the prime/only source of income. Now the question is – how does one make the forests/tigers a resource for the villagers such that the former is conserved and the latter provided with, at the least, sustenance level income?

The best way to tackle the problem of Tragedy of Commons and Deprivation of Endowments simultaneously is the assignation of property rights over the forest to the people who live in it. It has been well documented in literature how private property provides a mechanism to solving the Tragedy of Commons situation. It provides a mechanism of exclusion of those who do not own the property or pay the owner an access charge. At the same time, it is in the owner’s best interest to maintain his property such that it generates maximum revenue to him. Assignation of property rights to the inhabitants of the forest also tackles, very effectively, the Deprivation of Endowments as the tribes now own the forests (endowment) they used to inhabit (were deprived of).

Such a conservation policy has been functional in Zimbabwe for over two decades now. Zimbabwe has adopted a policy of conservation through utilization of forest resources and promotes its exploitation for profit as the best hope for conserving wildlife. The policy was initiated through elephant harvesting to maintain elephant herds within the carrying capacity of their home range. The wildlife utilization philosophy was extended to communal farming areas through the Communal Areas Management for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) Project in 1982. Since the inception of CAMPFIRE, the conservation situation has witnessed rapid improvements. Other African nations, such as South Africa, have borrowed the Zimbabwean model and are now able to protect their forests and wildlife with greater effectiveness. An important part of the conservation policy is the creation of a regulatory body which oversees the work of the various communities and aids them with finance, technical know-how, etc.

The survival of the tiger in the wild is inextricably dependant on the survival of the ecosystem it lives in. Looking at the situation from purely an economic standpoint, the inhabitants of most tiger populated regions stand to gain subsistence from exploiting the forests. The Government’s conservation policy is overwhelmed by the economic needs of the people of the people who live in and around the tiger’s habitat and cannot save the wild tiger from extinction by merely putting guards in place[v]. Added to this is the economic incentive offered by poaching.

The current policy of putting in place guns and guards cannot protect the ecosystem. Local communities need to be involved in the conservation effort on a sustained basis. The conservation policy should mitigate the economic forces at play against the tiger and the forests at their causality rather than suppressing their manifestation. The Government has had limited effectiveness in doing the latter. It is imperative now that it attempts the former approach, which has been adopted by other nations with varying degrees of success.

Delineating property rights and moving towards a community stewardship approach will be beneficial – both for the tiger and for the people that endanger it. Captive breeding must also be implemented and laws changed accordingly. The current situation in India is a precarious one. Handing over the forests to the local people should be a slow transition process with strong regulatory framework for it to be successful. Communal management is not a panacea. One of the problems that may face such a program is low per capita economic incentive. However, international experiences have shown it as a better alternative than Government protection of natural resources. The long-term objective of the Government should therefore be to shift its role from keeper to regulator.