Save the tiger: Environmental dividend from economic development

This is the Chinese year of the tiger and people are interested in saving the tiger from extinction more than ever. Several conferences are being held, and a lot of money is being thrown at saving the tiger, but all this can't work if the Government can't mitigate the conflict between locals and wild animals. The lack of agricultural productivity forces farmers to encroach on the habitat of the tigers. This has to be resolved. China and India can save the tigers by cooperating with each other, writes Barun Mitra.

A shorter version of this article was published in The Wall Street Journal.

Asia’s economic potential was first demonstrated by the four tiger economies. In recent decade, the focus has shifted to China, India and others. While economies are growing, the real tigers in the wild are living a precarious existence. It is time to reap the environmental dividend from growing prosperity, and save the tiger from extinction.

This is the Chinese Year of the Tiger! Undoubtedly, the focus is once again on ways of saving the wild tiger from extinction. This coming weekend the international Tiger Forum will meet in the north-eastern Chinese city of Hunchun. Next month a tiger summit is scheduled in St Petersburg, Russia. Last month 13 nations - Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, and Russia agreed, at a meeting of the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), to double the tiger count from about 3200 at present to 7,000 by 2022. Incidentally, the tiger numbers have halved since 2002, when the claim was 7,000. Many today believe that these numbers were grossly inflated due to faulty counting procedures.

In 1900, it is believed that there were about 100,000 tigers in the forests of Asia. The number declined to about 40,000 by the 1950. Today, billions of dollars are being spent to save one of the iconic animals in the world, but the future of the tiger continues to be bleak.

According to estimates used in draft documents for the St Petersburg Tiger Summit, the economic benefit of ecological services coming from forestry and wildlife estimated in 1997 to be as high as $ 33 trillion annually, and would be much higher today. But another estimate claimed that for the people living in tiger forest in countries like Cambodia, the annual economic benefit per household to be barely $675. The numbers don’t add up!

Over the past decade, just the central government in India increased its allocation for Project Tiger, from $ 16 million (Rs 75 crore) in the 9th five year plan, to $ 32 million (Rs 150 crore) in the 10th plan, and $ 128 million (Rs 600 crore) in the current 12th Plan (2007-2012). This is equivalent of about $ 25,000 per tiger per year, for a mere 1200 animals. Compare this with the flagship rural employment programme for the poor that promises about $ 70 per family per year.

There seems to be growing gulf between the prescriptions offered by many international, largely western experts, and what domestic policy makers in China, India, and elsewhere confront on the ground.

Many of the international experts agree on the need to commit larger sums of money, monitoring of the tigers and their habitat, and almost military style enforcement to keep people and poachers out.

But these old prescriptions don’t inspire confidence any more. Indian policy makers are increasingly aware of the rising aspirations of the people, and the demand for land, for agriculture and other developmental purposes. For some others, the biggest threat to tiger comes from the growing intensity of conflict between man and wild animals. They would not like to stake everything on counting tigers.

Just in the past two months, two people lost their lives in the vicinity of the famous Ranthambore tiger park. Typical compensation for a life lost is only $2200. This is barely 10% of the annual allocation by the central government for every tiger each year, at present. Just this week, in the same park, a forest ranger who was bravely trying to shepard a tiger that had strayed near a village, armed only with a stick, was mauled.

Last year Bangladesh reported 50 deaths from tiger attacks in the Sundarbans area of the Gangetic delta. In India, the annual death toll from wild animal attacks range from 200-300 each year, in addition to injuries, loss of property and crops. Tigers and other wild animals will have a future, only if this conflict can be diffused. Otherwise the beasts will stand no chance against the ire of man.

The problem in India, and some other tiger range countries, is not that there are too many people living in close proximity to wildlife. Typically, in such areas agricultural productivity is abysmal, poverty is endemic, and non-farm economic opportunities non-existent. Without resolving this human problem, neither a proliferation of conferences nor throwing cash will help the cause of the tiger.

But this need not be the situation. If India doubles its agriculture productivity the demand for agricultural land could fall by almost 40%. If non-farm opportunities are allowed to spread, dependence on subsistence agriculture will decline rapidly. One can already see glimpses of how the natural environment can recharge once the human pressure declines.

This is most dramatically visible in China. China’s agricultural productivity is almost double of India’s. The rapid movement of millions of people from rural to urban, and changing economic structure from agriculture to industrial, explains the rise in forest cover.

Between 1990 and 2007, according to World Bank database, China’s Per capita GDP increased 8 fold, from $ 314 to $2,566, while for India it just tripled, from $374 to $ 1,046. During this same period, China’s agricultural GDP shrank from 27% to 11%, and forest cover as a share of total area rose from 17% to 22%. It is this 30% increase in forest cover in 17 years, which makes it plausible for China to attempt to rebuild wildlife habitat, and reintroduce animals. In contrast, for India, agricultural GDP declined slowly from 29% to 18%, but forest cover stayed almost the same from 22% to 23%. This indicates that in India, there is a much higher pressure on forest from people who are not able to move beyond rural livelihood, and explains the continuing conflict between man and animal.

China and India, are neighbours and competitors in many fields. But in the arena of tiger conservation, they could greatly complement each other. China barely has 45-50 tigers in the wild, mostly near the Russian border in Siberia. India has among the best wildlife experts with capacity to manage tiger habitats.

India is already trying to reintroduce tigers in to two tiger parks where all the tigers were lost in recent years. India is also toying with an ambitious effort to reintroduce the Asiatic Cheetah, which had gone extinct in 1947. But today, India’s economic transformation is not yet deep enough to remove the potential for man and animal conflict. But it will happen. Working with the Chinese on tiger conservation would help build up Indian capacity to reap their own environmental dividend.

By cooperating with each other today, China and India would not only save the tiger in the wild, but redefine the meaning of “Asian Tigers”. Wildlife and forest are not mere intangible resources, whose values are only determined by creative book-keeping. For instance, in the US, the tangible economic benefit from wildlife and nature tourism, including fishing and hunting, was estimated at $125 billion in 2005. Asia could surely give the US a run for its money, if it manages the environmental resources better.

This will require a see change in thinking. Only when people profit from forest and wildlife, will they have any interest in preserving them, and then counting every tiger will become irrelevant. Tiger economies are better equipped to secure the future of the species too!

Changing climate: Hope for the tiger?

Two crouching tigers, some hidden dragons

The winds of change between the two giants could impact not only the environment but also politics. In this article published in the special issue (July-August 2010) of the "India China Chronicle", I look at the possible implications of the cooperation between these two countries at the climate conference in Copenhagen, last year. I believe a much bigger opportunity lies in the field of wildlife conservation, particularly in saving the tiger. Following is the text of the article.

Over the past half century, relations between the two Asian giants have been on a roller coaster ride. In recent years too the two countries have seen sentiments swing wildly on issues ranging from trade to Tibet, coloured periodically by the border issue.

Despite its history of turbulence, the two neighbours together made history at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, for the first time, the world got a glimpse of the possible consequence when China and India join hands for a common cause. prior to the climate summit, there had been a flurry of high level exchange between the two sides. Both countries came up with evidence to show that carbon intensity of their economies had been falling over the past decades. Both made unilateral announcements to reduce the carbon intensity further over the next decade. They also underscored the need for equitable share of the planet's atmosphere to meet the developmental aspirations of the people, and finally, they proposed to focus on a target of temperature increase in the future, as an alternative to the carbon emission targets which had been the cornerstone of the global climate negotiations.

While much of this information was trickling out of Delhi and Beijing prior to Copenhagen, there was very little appreciation of the possible implications of all this at the UN climate summit.

That became clearer in Copenhagen, when it was acknowledged that China and India were in constant touch, developing their negotiating strategies together. Even the ministers on the two sides were meeting almost on a daily basis to ensure that issues were smoothened out.

Today, it is clear that this joint positioning was the most significant factor in the ability of developing countries to withstand the pressure mounted by the rich countries in Copenhagen. With all the hype that was built up prior to Copenhagen, hardly anyone could have believed that at an international event of this magnitude, at an European capital, would have led to the marginalization of Europe itself. It was the Americans who seem to have realised the tectonic shift that was taking place, and decided to cut the losses by striking a deal on the political statement at the end. European governments had banked on the prospect of an agreement in Copenhagen to infuse new life to the Kyoto protocol, which is to expire in 2012, and so the political statement left them quite shocked.

China has been a member of various developing country groupings, including the G-20. But hardly ever was China seen taking the lead at international negotiations. At the WTO meetings over the past decade, it was the Brazilian and Indian ministers who typically articulated the developing country perspective. Copenhagen has changed all that. It is likely that the 2009 climate summit will be remembered not so much for its failure to reach an agreement to go beyond Kyoto protocol, but for the impact that China and India, by cooperating with each other, had on the whole process.

The question that arises: Is this a new phase of India-China cooperation in Copenhagen an exception, or would that become the norm for the future? Will the climate of relationship between the two giant neighbours undergo a fundamental shift in the aftermath of the climate summit?

Needless to say the two countries have a wide range of issues confronting each other. They range from economics to environment, from the unresolved border to geo-politics. While political frictions do surface periodically, both the countries seem to have matured enough not to allow the political cloud to affect the growing trade and economic relationship.

But the wide convergence on different environmental issues facing China and India, could help the two countries to seek common grounds on these areas. Without the historic baggage that affects the political relationship, and the periodic tensions that surface in any trade relationships, the prospect of better relationship on environmental issues because of the convergence of interest seem much brighter. And the cooperation on environmental issues may help improve the level of mutual trust and confidence that could rub off positively on political relationship as well.

The two countries are already cooperating on conventional and non-conventional sources of energy. Other potential environmental areas where there could be complementary relationship are newer and greener technologies,     ship-breaking,     recycling of material, etc. But perhaps the highest political capital lies in the possibility cooperation in the area of tiger conservation.

Tiger is an iconic animal in culture and history of both China and India. There are perhaps two dozen tigers left in the wild in China, mostly along the Siberian border. India currently estimates that about 1400 tigers are roaming in the wild. But globally, tiger is a highly endangered species, and remains so despite many initiatives launched to save it over the past four decades.

India believes that the demand for tiger parts in traditional Chinese medicine is one of the major sources of threat to tigers in Indian forests. Others think that the pressure of poaching to meet demand in China constitutes a smaller threat, about 25%. The bulk of the threat to tigers in India comes from shrinking forest habitat and the consequent conflict between human and wildlife.

Tiger conservation is not primarily an issue of law enforcement. India has problem of protecting its tigers, just as China has problem in completely eliminating all trade of tiger parts.

Recently there were some indications that there is perhaps a shift from this mutual blame game. India recently recognized that protecting tigers is primarily India's responsibility, since the Chinese do not come to India to poach the tigers.

China, on the other hand, is exploring alternative conservation strategies. following its economic rise, increasing number of people are finding non-rural economic opportunities, as a result, human pressure on forest and wild areas in many parts of China have significantly reduced. In some of these parts, forests have made a dramatic comeback. Some of these old tiger habitats could be ready again to host wildlife.

China is seriously looking for ways of reintroducing tigers in a controlled manner, in a few areas where tigers once roamed. Hardly any country has as much expertise and experience of managing tiger habitats as India. With recent relocation of tigers into areas from where they had vanished, India is also grappling with similar problems.

China does not have wild tigers ready for translocation. so they have set up an ambitious effort to try to develop ways of re-wilding tigers that have been born in captivity. This is a very exciting scientific opportunity.

In both these aspects, preparation of tiger habitat, re-wilding and reintroduction of the tiger, China and India could cooperate, and if successful, it would secure not just the tiger, but generate huge amount of goodwill between the elephant and the dragon!

China poses an even more audacious challenge to old conservation mindset. It has almost perfected the art of breeding tigers in captivity. It has more than 5000 tigers in captivity in zoos and other facilities. It could initiate a controlled trade in tiger parts from its captive tigers, and that could lower the incentive to poachers to kill wild tigers.

Even if India does not wish to join in this effort to help the cause of conservation through commerce, it stands to gain if China is successful in meeting the demand for tiger parts from its stock of captive tigers.

From the history of world trade, it is clear that smugglers and criminals profit only when there is a restriction on trade, creating an unmet demand for goods and services. Naturally, when trade is outlawed, only outlaws trade! If China were to legalize trade in tiger parts from its breeding facilities, the poachers in India would have little chance of competing with the market forces. Consequently, threat of poaching will almost get eliminated in India. There are many examples from across the world where legal trade has eliminated illegal trade. Over a million crocodiles are harvested each year from farms, yet there is hardly any evidence of any crocodile being killed in India in order to meet the demand from the international fashion industry.

China and India need to find ways of building on the new climate they sought to create in Copenhagen. Their common position on climate was premised on the belief that economic growth would actually enable the countries to improve energy efficiency, reduce pollution, compete effectively and clean up the environment. And as economies improve, they de-carbonise, as the history of human development illustrates over the past 400 years.

This is the real potential of the changing climate between China and India - harnessing the power of commerce, benefiting people and improving the quality of environment. Today, economic potential of both China and India are now openly acknowledged by all. Now is the time to reap the environmental dividend from economic development