A few weeks ago this newspaper was kind enough to publish an article I wrote on the sorry fate of the tiger. The article may have just worked. While I am not claiming all the credit for it (I am sure several honourable IAS officers advised him), the finance minister did in fact make a provision in his recent budget for Rs 50 crore to fund a Tiger Protection Force. Now that's a paltry sum and probably represents just one week's profits for any respectable tiger-poaching syndicate. But let's not be churlish. A beginning has been made. I am sure we can expect more generosity once the fifty crore is spent. We certainly need an efficient, modern, vigorous TPF. We need to recruit energetic forest guards. We need to equip them with cell phones, jeeps, night-vision goggles and with some luck with good telescopic rifles (hopefully to shoot poachers and not tigers). We need to make the cost of poaching prohibitive. Catch a few of them and sentence them to long prison terms; some would argue that it is a pity that poaching is not a capital offence, hanging a few might just send a tough warning to others planning to enter the profession. I got quite a few e-mails from concerned readers who argued that merely tightening up on the enforcement side will not suffice. Like any other issue, we need to address the source of the problem also. The present unhappy situation of the tiger is rooted in the fact that the new rich class in China are voraciously "demanding' tiger bones, tiger organs and tiger skins. If this demand is not addressed, we run the risk of poaching syndicates trying to sabotage the Tiger Protection Force. So simultaneously with raising the cost of poaching the wild tiger, we should create a supply of authentic tiger skins, tiger bones and tiger parts to feed the demands of the Chinese market. The proposed solution is to "farm' tigers, meaning literally breed them commercially as we currently breed chicken or sheep or cattle. However disgusting one may find the thought of breeding the magnificent tiger in captivity, it might be the only sensible solution. We would have increased the cost of poaching and brought down the price of tiger parts, thus making poaching much less attractive. Mind you, poaching will not go away and the TPF must remain very vigilant. While there is no scientific basis whatsoever to the belief that tiger parts have medicinal value, there is even less basis to the absurd belief that parts of a wild tiger are more efficacious than parts from a captive tiger. So poaching will not disappear. It will just become less attractive and the TPF is likely to have a much better chance in fulfilling its task. Many animal rights activists will find the thought of breeding captive tigers appalling. I too think it is pretty nauseating. But we need to remind ourselves that dairy and poultry farming are not exactly exercises in non-violence. In fact, most people who visit poultry factories or abattoirs are likely to turn vegetarian. That is why I have avoided visiting them! But sensibly, we do not ban dairy or poultry farming or sheep-rearing. We know that as long as there is demand for milk, eggs, wool and meat, any ban will not work. We can regulate these industries to minimise cruelty to animals; banning is not a sensible option. We can take the same approach towards tigers. We can authorise the setting up of large well-run tiger parks which provide a continuous and low-priced supply of tiger parts to customers in China while at the same time reducing the profit margins and incentives of poachers. Frankly, anyone who does not have moral compunctions about locking up wild animals in zoos for the entertainment of our children (practically all of us) should not have any ethical problems with this approach. It is just that at its first mention we all recoil with horror. The more we think about it, captive commercial breeding may paradoxically be the most realistic way of saving the magnificent tiger in the wild. Whenever a trade becomes legitimate, several things happen. Criminal elements and mafiosi do not find it attractive any more. Law enforcement officials find it easier to capture and prosecute those who still break the rules. There is considerable evidence piling up in Africa and elsewhere that terrorists are using poaching revenues as a funding source. This piling up of one obscenity on another will also reduce. And of course, the government can get some taxes. One would hope that any taxes collected from the legitimised trade of captive tiger-breeding would be set apart and used for the newly established Tiger Protection Force. (As an aside, let's not give tax-free SEZ stats for tiger farms!) Of course the best hope will rest with emphatic education of the Chinese consumers that tiger parts are of zero value as health tonics or aphrodisiacs. But this is going to be a long haul. We need to engage with the leadership of the People's Republic of China (now emerging as one of our largest trading partners) in this regard. Just as horse-breeding has declined with the disappearance of horse-drawn carriages, the aesthetically disgusting tiger-breeding industry too will hopefully decline over time. Till then, we must learn to live with a second order sub-optimal solution that realistically recognises the existence of market demand and creates an environment where this is met. At the same time if we make the costs of poaching prohibitive and use our Tiger Protection Force well, we may just have a glimmer of a hope that our glorious national animal will survive in the wild. I would hope that our government will move forward with this sensible proposal without taking recourse to the usual procrastinating tactic of appointing yet another committee. The writer divides his time between Mumbai and Bangalore