Bittu Sahgal: Strategies of protection

Bittu Sahgal is a recognized voice for tiger conservation, primarily known for his role as founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, India’s leading wildlife and ecology magazine. He is also an environmental activist, writer and founder of educational outreach programs for adults and children.

I met the broad smiling and unflustered Sahgal amidst a parade of visitors and talented employees vying for his attention in the bustling Sanctuary Asia office of south Mumbai. He waxed both practically and poetically about different facets of tiger conservation. He expressed a need for strategies of protection to focus at the edges of tiger reserves and the surrounding corridors, because that is where human-wildlife conflict is most high, with dispersing tigers as well as humans getting hurt. He talked about the creation of community owned nature conservancies as a means to enhance quality of life, for if people’s livelihoods and wellbeing are secure, they can become effective stakeholders for conservation. He pondered darkly on forces undermining conservation, such as the illegal wildlife trade, and also avarice, careerism, and apathy unfolding within the ranks of government. He cautioned that one cannot champion peoples’ rights to forest and water if there is no forest, and reminded that the forest, itself, is a temple to maintain and respect.