The tiger was taken to the brink of extinction by British marksmen atop elephants during the heyday of the Raj. Poachers eager to sell tiger skins to collectors and organs as aphrodisiacs in the Far East further cut the numbers.
There used to be more than 20,000 tigers in India. Now, despite heroic efforts by conservationists to protect the last 3,000 of the great cats still roaming in remote areas, the Indian tiger is facing extinction from an unlikely threat: the West's passion for cosmetics made from talcum powder.
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Britain's leading cosmetic manufacturer, Unilever, is one of a number of international firms that have been sourcing talc from illegal mining operations in sanctuaries critical to the survival of the tiger. The operations are centred 250km southwest of Delhi in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The area is home to the Jamwa Ramgarh Wildlife Sanctuary and the neighbouring Sariska Tiger Reserve.
Both the sanctuary and the reserve provide an ideal habitat for reviving the tiger population and are supposed to be protected by environmental laws. However, across vast tracts of the wildlife sanctuary, the mining industry has taken root. Using dynamite to blast the area for soapstone, mine owners are ripping up the habitat with blatant disregard for the surrounding environment. Slurries of waste the size of tower blocks litter the landscape and large areas of forest have been depleted as trees make way for the mining operations.
The impact on the tigers should not be underestimated: the loss of habitat and prey means the ecosystem that can sustain a tiger population is destroyed. The territory of a male tiger can range anything up to 100 sq km: it needs cover, food and water.
Valmik Thapar, the renowned tiger expert who presented an award-winning BBC series, has described this region as a "small island of hope" for the endangered species, particularly with so much of India's natural tiger habitat lost for ever.
Thapar has been personally involved in the fight against the illegal mining in Rajasthan: "In the past the biggest threat to the tiger has been poachers and bone traders, but now it is the mining which rips apart the habitat of the tiger and violates the forests."
Antony Barnett
Guardian Weekly July 26
