Four Goa MLAs have opposed the proposed declaration of a tiger reserve in the state, telling the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee (CEC) that thousands of families would be displaced — even though no concrete data supports their claims. The lawmakers, from Valpoi, Poirem, Sanguem and Sanvordem, framed their argument around “public hardship,” ignoring both the Bombay High Court’s 2023 directive and the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s repeated calls for compliance. Their statements, widely reported by The Times of India, reveal a deeper crisis in governance: political resistance to conservation framed as empathy.
Valpoi MLA and state forest minister Vishwajit Rane submitted a memorandum “to protect the interests of the people,” claiming local opposition to the reserve. Speaker Ganesh Gaonkar urged the CEC “not to put us in trouble.” Social welfare minister Subhash Phal Dessai said “20,000 people” would be affected, asserting “we have not seen a single tiger.” These figures were unverified.
MLA
Poirem MLA Deviya Rane, often accused of corruption, added that under the Indian tiger authority (NTCA) rules, a tiger reserve requires “80 to 100 resident tigers,” a misreading of the regulation that instead refers to habitat potential, not headcount. Rane questioned how many tigers have been sighted, despite the forest department installing cameras, and asked for more studies before any reserve notification. The remarks of this MLA betray a familiar tactic: using procedural uncertainty to delay protection. And to no use, as many Indian tiger reserves hardly have tigers yet.
This confrontation stems from the Bombay High Court’s 2023 order directing the state to notify the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and adjoining forests as a tiger reserve within three months. The judgment came after years of neglect and illegal mining across the Mhadei basin, a key Western Ghats corridor linking Karnataka’s Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary to Goa’s forest belt. Despite evidence of tiger presence from camera traps and scat analysis, the Goa government has resisted implementation under pressure from mining, real estate and political lobbies.
Political theatre over science
The statements by the four MLAs show how easily conservation debates in India are hijacked by local populism. “We have not seen a single tiger” has become political shorthand for denying responsibility. It overlooks the fact that tiger sightings are rare even in strongholds like Corbett or Tadoba — and that their presence is confirmed by ecological data, not by village anecdotes. What these leaders call “displacement” is often a managed voluntary relocation process under central schemes with compensation and livelihood support. Yet, by exaggerating numbers, they frame conservation as threat instead of opportunity.
The NTCA requires habitat continuity, not census quotas. Goa’s forests meet that test — part of the larger Western Ghats landscape identified by biologists as essential for long-term tiger recovery. The claim that “no tigers exist” has been disproved repeatedly by independent researchers and forest camera traps, which have recorded multiple individuals crossing from Karnataka’s reserve into Mhadei during dry months.
The cost of political defiance
This resistance is about preserving extractive interests. Goa’s forest minister should be championing protection, not lobbying against it. Instead of preparing a tiger conservation plan — which the Bombay High Court ordered by July 2023 — the government continues to plead delay, citing “public sentiment.” But these same constituencies are witnessing deforestation, mining runoff, and water depletion that directly undermine their livelihoods. The political rhetoric of displacement hides a deeper displacement — of truth itself.
Goa’s tiger reserve debate reflects a wider pattern of political failure and corruption. When MLA’s, selected representatives, misrepresent conservation laws for short-term populism, they not only endanger tigers but also discredit legitimate concerns of local communities. Protection and participation can coexist; deceit and delay cannot.
The choice before Goa
Goa has an opportunity to prove that ecological responsibility and development are not opposites. The tiger reserve would anchor water security, restore degraded forest cover, and strengthen tourism and research economies — if implemented honestly. But if politics continues to treat tiger protection as a threat to voters instead of a duty to the nation, the Mhadei forests will become just another case study in bureaucratic cowardice. The CEC now faces a test: whether India’s environmental justice system still has the will to enforce its own verdicts against political convenience.
Until then, Goa’s tiger reserve exists only on paper — trapped between denial and deflection by MLA’s, like the tigers themselves, waiting for courage to return to power.
Source: The Times of India, India
Photo: The Times of India, India
