Sound recorders, camera traps and drones are being used to keep watch on women without their consent at Uttarakhand’s Corbett Tiger Reserve, researchers at Cambridge University have found.
According to the report, Cambridge researcher Dr Trishant Simlai spent 14 months interviewing 270 locals living around the reserve and found that forest rangers in the national park deliberately fly drones over local women to frighten them out of the forest.
In some cases, this was also being done to stop them from collecting natural resources.
During his research, women told Simlai that they felt being watched and inhibited by cameras and hence talk and sing much softly, the report stated.
In one instance, an autistic woman who had gone to relieve herself was captured by camera traps. Her video was uploaded on social media and shared via WhatsApp, the report stated.
Another woman, according to the report, told Simlai that she could not walk in front of the cameras or sit in the area because she was afraid that she could get photographed or recorded in a wrong way. The study also revealed many women and others were being recorded without their knowledge.
Following his research, Simlai told news agency AFP, “For women living in villages around the reserve, the forest has long been a space for freedom and expression away from the men in a heavily conservative and patriarchal society.”
Meanwhile, the study also quoted a forest ranger revealing that a camera once pictured a couple involved in objectionable activities in the forest, which was then immediately reported to the police. It was also reported that many women, to escape being recorded, were roaming farther into the forest range, which has the highest density of tigers in the world.
The Jim Corbett National Park is a part of the largest Corbett Tiger Reserve in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand. The majestic landscape of Corbett is well-known for its tiger richness. Established in the year 1936 as Hailey National Park, Corbett has the glory of being India’s oldest and most prestigious National Park. It was also honoured as the place where Project Tiger was first launched in the year 1973.
