Final thoughts

26th January 2008

I'm home but I can't get from my mind the thought that, whatever conservation efforts are applied by the world's NGO's, without a significant change in attitude from the Indian government, the tiger in India is doomed to extinction. Great efforts in conservation have been made on behalf of the tiger in the past two decades and yet the population of tigers in India is still declining at an alarming rate. The Forest Department in Madhya Pradesh are now finding traps and snares within the tourist areas of the Park, a sure sign that tigers in the buffer zone have been poached out. Punishments for poaching are ineffective and their appears a significant lack of will at government level to do anything other than posture. I arrived in India optimistic that the world could save the tiger. I left with a hollow heart.