Comments on: Paper Tigers?

By: Tory

Tory — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 06:17:50 +0000

I’m quite pleased with the infortmoain in this one. TY!

By: Neha

Neha — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:54:31 +0000

Thank you Suhrith:
interested in the way the author asserts it is hard for social science to always be predictive. In the rather political (and also social-and-conflict-ridden!) tiger conservation scenario, it is worth giving a thought to whether conservation derives legitimacy from numbers. And since the Central Government does give so much importance to numbers, it is imperative to counter-balance that with all that is behind the numbers, or realising how conservation is so much more complex than estimation.

By: Suhrith

Suhrith — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:58:55 +0000

Nice piece, Neha. You make many important points. I think this obsession with numbers is a global problem not restricted to the realm of wildlife. Take even an analysis on poverty, for instance. We are constantly looking at the numbers, when what we need to concentrate on is the policy initiatives that must be put in place. This is an paper by John Harriss, seemingly unrelated to the subject of your post, where he argues that ‘understanding social relations matters more for policy on chronic poverty than measurement’. (http://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/WP77_Harriss.pdf).
I’d imagine the same can be said in relation to tiger conservation – the obsession with numbers must give way for a more nuanced understanding of social relations, which in turn must drive policy initiatives.