Sunday, December 2, 2012

The story of transformation

The story of transformation - of how wildlife poachers of the Mogia tribe, became its protectors

“My group of six along with other Mogias were caught and jailed,” informed Lakhan Singh. After four years of imprisonment, the officials of the Forest Department succeeded in convincing Lakhan Singh and other Mogias to become informants on other active poachers of their tribe. “I was told that in a few years, there would be no tigers in Ranthmbore.

I have lived amidst the forest with animals like tigers and leopards and I did not really like seeing the animals being killed for their skin and bones to foreign countries. Now that I have a choice, I would choose to protect our forest and our tigers”, said Lakhan Singh. In the last four years, there has been a drastic fall in poaching activities in Ranthambore. And the continous rise in tiger numbers has made it possible to translocate some to Sariska National Park.

“Mogias have a very deep network of animal dealers and smugglers, but we are taking all possible measures to nab them,” said a forest official (name undisclosed). “We also try to provide them with alternate jobs to earn a livelihood and I’m glad that we have transformed many of them who are now our informants.” Indeed, Lakhan Singh was an example of a poacher-turned-protector of animals. But did the transformation really lead to satisfaction, I wondered. One kill fetched him approximately Rs.15,000. With a wife and seven kids, and just the job of loading stones and filling potholes, Lakhan Singh remains unsure of providing a regular meal to his family. With no tangible support for a regular income, hope this wildlife protector’s newfound flicker of motivation does not extinguish soon…


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

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