Save Yourself?

The carcasses of a tiger, a rhino and an elephant found in and around the famed Kaziranga National Park (KNP) within the space of a single day — last Saturday — point to the ease with which the poaching syndicate with an international network might be operating, despite the tall claims of the Tarun Gogoi government about its anti-poaching measures. That as many as 12 tigers have died in the KNP since past 10 months and five rhinos have been eliminated this year alone, reflects on the precariousness of the KNP wildlife, thanks to a government that only talks loud but does so little on the ground. State Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain owes an explanation to the people of the State as to why despite the scope to profit from the experience of the poaching menace, there is such indifference to the gradual elimination of the State’s endangered wildlife. Or does ‘wildlife’ mean to this government mere paperwork bereft of pragmatism and ideas to confront the problem whose dimensions could be many, such as corruption in the forest department and tendency of people living in areas near the KNP to come to the aid of poachers in return for money so as to fight poverty? Poaching is quite an old story now; only, its forms have evolved as has everything around, except of course the government’s defunct anti-poaching scheme. As anyone can infer, just as the indigenous people of the State who have been left to fend for themselves in the wake of the untrammelled flow of hostile elements from Bangladesh, the Gogoi government seems to be asking the celebrated KNP fauna too to make their own arrangements against poachers! THE SENTINEL