It's time to move beyond corporate social responsibility and talk about corporate environment responsibility.
Tigers are vanishing from the world. It's time to move beyond corporate social responsibility and talk about corporate environment responsibility. This is what Keshav Varma, programme director, Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), The World Bank, had to say. He was speaking at a lecture on 'Why should the World Bank save tigers?' at AMA on Wednesday. Varma pointed at the vanishing situation of tigers and biodiversity at large from the world while appreciating the work of GEER in lion conservation.
Varma said, "Since 1900s, there has been dramatic collapse in the number of tigers around the world. From 100,000, numbers have fallen to 3,200. The area of habitat is also at an all time low of 7% and has reached a state of non-sustainability. Wilderness is fast disappearing."
He added that owing to development in forests, wildlife is only seen towards the boundaries of nations, for instance the Laos-Russia-China boundary, the Nepal-India boundary and others.
Varma said, "The pressure of unplanned development has not reached to these remote areas. But, the tiger crisis is a result of human greed and insensitivity. While deforestation is a reason for vanishing tiger and wildlife populace, poaching and illegal trade is another reason."
The market of tiger products in Asia amounts to $20 million. In addition, in 33 of the 72 tiger conservation landscapes (TCLs), the oil and gas concessions were overlapping, he said.
Varma concluded, "Vanishing tigers affect the entire ecosystem of Asia. It implies accelerated climate change risk, food security risk, fresh water risk, disappearance of plant and life-saving medicines and loss from carbon capture."
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