On Saving the Tiger

Nowadays it is quite fashionable to espouse a 'cause' (inverted commas deliberate) and at least in India, Saving the Tiger is something which is getting a lot of attention on TV channels, especially NDTV. Several well meaning people are associated with it, among who are professionals/volunteers working in the field, celebrities of many hues and colours, people from the general population and students.

It has never been clear to me as to what effect all this is having on the actual situation on the ground. Is wearing a "Save the Tiger" t-shirt enough ? or sending a cheque to the 'fund' (would like to understand how the money is being utilized) ? This is not to criticize the need to preserve India's tiger population or to doubt the intention of the people associated with it, but to question the whole hoopla surrounding it and effectiveness in achieving the objective.

I can understand it if the purpose of the campaign is to reduce usage of tiger derivative products in India, but then no one I know uses any, so clearly the market is both small, well paying and international (e.g. usage of ivory in India has been drastically reduced because of legislation around buying/selling of ivory). Given this, the average person on the street is completely unaffected by the campaign beyond a vague sense of national pride in preserving the Indian tiger (given that it is India's national animal, etc.).

My submission is: given that the average person has a short attention span and only a limited number of causes that can be adopted, it is irresponsible to highlight Saving the Tiger as opposed to something much more relevant such as preventing female infanticide or promoting education/literacy or improving standards of hygiene. Of course, one cannot hold the position that we don't care if there are any tigers left in the wild or not, but it is quite clearly the government's responsibility to ensure that wildlife is preserved and ensure that funds are available and legislation is enacted that acts as a deterrent. If the government fails at this task, then any amount of breast-beating or taking out of vigils and protests is not going to help the Indian tiger.

This a little off-topic from my recent posts, however I did say that my blog was going to reflect my interests/pre-occupations! Next posts are almost certainly going to be about detective fiction and possibly Liferay (not a combination of the two, but separately).