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Sahgal's book implores all to wake up and smell the depleting forest cover but not without celebrating what the country and its government have still managed to keep alive, the Bandhavgarh tiger reserve. Located in the Vindhya hill range of Madhya Pradesh, the reserve boasts of the highest density of tiger population in the world. But not for long, Sahgal said.
Sahgal is the editor of Sanctuary Asia, India's leading wildlife, conservation and environment magazine which he started in 1981 to spread awareness among Indians of their disappearing natural heritage.
While releasing the book, Dr Karan Singh said, "In India, the tiger has faced danger from the maharajas who hunted them, the British who thought they needed to defeat the maharajas, corporates who want to buy reserve land and now, the inadequacy of the Chinese male. Some body parts of tiger are considered aphrodisiacs and much trade takes place at the cost of the national animal."
The Deutsche Bank has sponsored the book. Dr Singh, appreciating Deutsche Bank's initiative in extending corporate responsibility in the field of conservation, said the corporate sector hasn't sufficiently participated in ecological conservation. His only grouse against the book was that Sahgal had not mentioned the people living around the reserves.
"In the light of the Tribal Rights Act, you cannot afford to ignore the people. They are the ones who vote and they are also the ones who are in close quarters with the wild," said Singh, adding that during his tenure as the Chairman of the Indian Board for Wildlife in 1967, the government had failed to recognise the issues pertaining to the relationship between the animals and village dwellers.
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