Forever Tigers at Rencha
by Gideon Egger

Drawing of a tiger inside the Rencha schoolhouse.- 
© Gideon Egger 2004. Taken at Rencha, MP, India, February 2004

Anil Thakuri and I wanted to start a program that would help educate the people from the local villages around Bandhavgarh, get them more involved in the park and conservation, and help to ease the tensions between villagers and wildlife that have been extant in India since at least 1973 and the inception of Project Tiger. There are many villages on the periphery of the park, mostly very poor and primarily centered on low-grade subsistence farming. Over grazing is rampant--some farmers have taken to actually grazing their cattle inside the park, and many take Minor Forest Products (MFP e.g. leaves, grasses, etc.) from the park, a practice that is now condoned by the Indian government.

For the most part, money and resources derived from tourism don't reach the local populations (although a handful of locals do work as forest guards and at the tourist lodges). There is in general a sense of competition for resources between the local populations on the one hand and the wildlife and those who strive to preserve it on the other. The Indian government has a program to compensate villagers when their livestock is killed by a wild animal, but this process can take months or even years, and in the meantime frustrations and resentments foment leading to the poisoning of tigers and leopards and even offers of assistance to poachers. In less than a year two tigers have been electrocuted near the park (for detail see the article at http://indianjungles.com/010204.htm).

Sign on the gates of Bandhavgarh.- 
© Gideon Egger 2004. Taken February 2004

We hope to initiate education programs at some of the schools in the villages surrounding the park, and as a first step decided to bring the students from one of the local schools into the park. Anil put me in touch with Dhruv Singh, the owner and director of the Churhat Kothi, Bandhavgarh Jungle Camp, the oldest and most established tourist camp at Bandhavgarh. Dhruv suggested that we begin with the school children from Rencha, a village right outside the park-but remote from the tourist areas at Tala-where he has previously been involved; the people of Rencha know him and there is mutual respect.

The children of Rencha waiting to be taken into the park.
© Gideon Egger 2004. Taken at Rencha, MP, India, February 2004

Dhruv arranged for eleven Marutis (Indian Suzuki Jeeps) to meet the children at 8:00am right outside the gate to their school.

Eleven Maruti Jeeps waiting for the children of Rencha.
© Gideon Egger 2004. Taken at Rencha, MP, India, February 2004

It gets quite cold in the morning, before the sun heats up in the afternoon, and their school, an unheated one-room-schoolhouse, had been starting at 10:00am in order to avoid the coldest hours. Dhruv and I got an immediate perspective on this when we showed up at 8:00 to find a group of eighty-two children and their teachers shivering without sweaters or sweatshirts; most had no shoes either. I was wearing two shirts, a sweatshirt and a wind breaker, and I was still cold. We loaded them up into the Marutis, but it was even colder in the open back when the jeeps started moving.

The sun was shining but these girls were cold.
© Gideon Egger 2004. Taken February 2004

Still, the children seemed happy about being given the chance to see the park from the inside, and we were a proud procession headed for the gates of the park.

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