It is important that the effort and energies of the forest department are devoted more towards the pressing challenges and threats to India's biodiversity rather than to arbitrarily and illegally acting against wildlife researchers. https://thewire.in/environment/of-red-carpets-and-green-tape
Across India, wildlife researchers today are being harassed by forest officers for not taking prior permission for photographing and conducting research on wildlife.
At a recent conference in Bengaluru – the Indian Wildlife Ecology Conference 2024 – one common concern among wildlife researchers was the bureaucratic red-tapeism (or more appropriately, ‘green-tapeism’) that leads to severe delays and restrictions in undertaking research on wildlife.
In a country where wildlife researchers are a rarity and funding for research miniscule, scared and traumatised researchers run pillar to post to secure research permits. For them, it is not the tiger that rules the jungle, but the ‘permit raj’ of the forest department, which is the law of the jungle.
by Ritwick Dutta and Tiasa Adhya
28/08/2024