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09 Aug 2019
GS Paper 4
Case Studies
You are posted as forest range officer in an area with a tiger biosphere reserve. Recently, due to construction of a highway, that passes through the biosphere reserve, the tiger habitat has shrunk, along with a spurt in tiger population. This has led to cases of tigers spilling out of forest area into the nearby villages, causing loss of cattle and human lives in these villages. Due to this, agitated villagers have begun killing and poisoning tigers.
(1) Do you think action taken by villagers in this situation is right? Give reasons in support of your answer.
(2) What are the options available to you to resolve this situation? (250 words)
Approach
Approach
- Introduce the case with constitutional provisions related to animal conservation.
- Present the Ethical dilemma posted in the case.
- Examine various stakeholders in this scenario and value and ethical principles that would come into play.
- Justify your viewpoint on villagers action.
- Give your opinion on future course of action to resolve the conflict.
Answer
- Article 48(A) of our Constitution imposes a duty on Government to protect the environment and safeguard forest and wildlife while Article 51A places the same obligation on the citizens. Therefore, it becomes our constitutional duty to protect the tigers.
- Killing anybody whether human being or any animal can not be justified on any ethical on moral grounds because right to life is a universal right.
- The ethical dilemmas involved in the case are:
- Development Vs Environmental Ethics: The case presents a conflict between development and protection of environment. Here due to widening of roads in biosphere reserve, tiger habitat has been destroyed.
- Survival Vs Compassion toward animals: Due to habitat destruction, tigers are encroaching into villagers territory which is the root cause for increasing conflict between the tigers and villagers which is resulting in killings from both sides to protect themselves.
Stakeholders
- Government
- Forest Department
- Villagers
- Civil Society
Ethical Values Involved
- Environmental Ethics
- Compassion toward animals
- Sentience
a) Killings cannot be justified on any ethical or moral grounds. Since there is a long history of peaceful co-existence of humans and wildlife in India, there is a need to delve deeper into the causes of crisis.
- The main cause of the increasing human and wildlife conflict is the encroachment of animals territory by increasing population and decrease of prey for wild species due to increased incident of disease among wild species.
- Tigers, like all other wild animals, always tends to avoid people, and they attack only in defence if they are taken by surprise.
- It is the human being who have encroached into their area. Therefore, killing them cannot be justified as laws of nature grants inalienable right to life to them also.
b) Being a forest range officer, it is my constitutional duty to protect the wildlife and a moral obligation to have compassion toward animals, therefore to resolve the crisis, I would prefer the following course of action.
- The immediate attention requires necessary steps to stop killing from both sides and ensuring the safety. The very first thing is to fence the boundaries of villages and provide tigers with food so that they do not attack the cattles or enter villages.
- Secondly, killing tiger is a criminal offence under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, therefore people responsible for killing must be charged under the law. This will send a strong message to villagers to avoid any further killing of tigers.
- Thirdly, taking all the measures within the constitutional limits possible to compensate the villagers for their losses.
- Fourthly, deploying the wildlife monitoring force equipped with adequate personnel, equipment and communication system to prevent any further attack from tigers on innocent villagers.
Long-Term Solution
- Rehabilitating villagers from the areas where the frequency of conflict is high.
- Secondly, creating appropriate corridors for wildlife to pass through, so that conflict may be minimised.
- Thirdly, protecting villagers from any loss by registering them under appropriate government plans such as crop insurance or jivan bima schemes etc
- Fourthly, involving villagers in sustainable wildlife management, thus ensuring alternate livelihood for them.
However, the key to resolving the conflict lies in the proper sensitization of communities.
Therefore, using principles of behavioural psychology so that villagers emotionally associate themselves with tigers as they enjoy a significant place in Hindu mythology as the vehicle of Goddess Durga. This might change the villagers viewpoint of treating tigers as their co-habitats on earth rather than an enemy species.
