India has fewer gharials in the wild than tigers

• Despite a much-vaunted conservation project, there are less than 200 adult gharials left in the wild -- they are 20 times more endangered than tigers

• Points to basic flaws in India’s conservation programme
   

New Delhi, December 7, 2006: India’s gharials are in serious trouble. There are fewer than 200 of these river predators left in the wild. And their deplorable state has remained ignored even by the media, while the tiger hogs the headline -- but the truth is that gharials are 20 times more endangered than tigers.

These facts have been brought to light by a report in Down To Earth, the science and environment fortnightly, which the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) helps publish.

India initiated its crocodile conservation programme (Project Crocodile) in 1975. And in 1982, writes the magazine, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, one of the project’s funders, lauded it as one of the most successful conservation programmes in the world. As a result, in 1991, the Union ministry of environment and forests, believing that the project had served its purpose, withdrew the funds for the captive breeding and egg collection programmes.

Only two surveys on gharial numbers have been done since then. And between these two surveys, the population of gharials has plummeted. In 2003, a mere 514 gharials were reported in the country -- almost a 60 per cent drop from the 1,200 found in a 1998 survey. Experts point out that the conservation programme suffered from a lack of information on gharials numbers, and hence, absence of remedial action.

The programme suffered from more than that, says the magazine. A 1983 notification under the Wildlife Protection Act, which placed the gharial in Schedule 1, brought the conservation programme into conflict with livelihoods. Trade in crocodile products (skin and eggs) was banned. Local communities, already smarting after their traditional fishing grounds were taken away to make way for gharial conservation, were incensed. They readily took to lucrative (and illegal) sand mining in regions where the gharial bred -- destroying the work of years.

The ecosystem approach to conservation, according to Down To Earth, instead of a species-oriented approach, is the only answer. The aim should be to consider the entire watershed as one ecosystem, give weightage to all biological resources within that watershed -- and factor the local communities’ needs in this entire programme.