Of Wild Life Poaching and Wild Lifestyle Preaching Hindu Pagans
Sid Harth
Millennium Massacre
Valmik Thapar
Horror of horrors! Where else in the world can you get up in the
morning to discover that poachers entered one of the so called finest
zoos in India and tore a hole in a 16 foot high chain link fence,
opened one lock to a door, broke another lock, then carefully picked on
a young one year old tigress and choked her to death. Then they pull
her out, skin her, rip her claws and teeth out and dump her skin and
bones in the nearby pond! Grisly, blood curdling and hideous —something
terrible gone wrong with this nation. And we are groping in the dark
for solutions.
Let’s quickly track back and look at some of the blood curdling acts
committed against the wildlife of this nation in the last 10 months. I
call it the millennium massacre. Our senses were filled with the
horrors of 13 tigers dying at the Nandankanan Zoo. The pictures of dead
and chopped tigers were flashed across the world. I look upon it as a
national shame. Who could imagine that in the 21st century our zoos are
not just overcrowded but managed in pathetic ways, where tigers are
herded together, traumatised, injected with medicine, and then left to
die?
Then at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one there
were four horrific seizure in UP, Ghaziabad, Khaga and Haldwani that
shocked the world’s conservation community. More than 200 leopards’
skins, 18,000 leopard claws, 221 black buck skins and so much more were
seized. These were the biggest seizures of illegal wildlife derivatives
in the world. Illegal factories were running across UP to convert
India’s greatest natural treasures into cash.
When I stood in Ghaziabad amidst the skins of leopards and tigers I
realised that the great natural treasures were vanishing and our system
of governance had collapsed. And I know that the horror stories of the
last 10 months were only the tip of the iceberg in the massacre of
India’s wildlife. We seem to have failed somewhere. A nation endowed by
a natural wealth so rich and diverse has let it vanish.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests has a tiny wildlife and forest
wing, and even with the best of intentions it is helpless and a silent
spectator to these crimes against nature. The state governments and
their machinery are non-functional and our non-governmental
organisations have not found a way to tackle the crisis.
We have little intelligence or information to act against the wildlife
criminal and our mechanisms of wildlife governance and enforcement are
at their lowest ebb. Our laws are being violated with impunity and big
business has ripped apart much of forest India for mining and timber.
The mafia and illegal traders are plundering the rest.
And it is a national shame that none of us have done anything to
counter this accelerating crisis. We have elected our political
leaders. Irrespective of their levels of ignorance or skill it must be
the job of the people to force corrective action. Thousands of square
kilometres of some of our finest forests are lost each year. Few can
estimate the loss — It is billions of dollars each year!
But I believe there are people who care and in city, town and village.
Believe it or not there are even a few in the government. We must join
hands to change all this — we must end this horror story that plagues
our wildlife.
How do we change course? We must start by first forcing our political
leadership to bifurcate the federal arm of governance — the Ministry of
Environment and Forests into a Ministry of Environment to deal with
city and water pollution etc and a Ministry of Forests and Wildlife to
deal with 20 per cent of India — forest India.
Isn’t it shocking that in 53 years of independence we never created a
dedicated Ministry to protect 20 per cent of our landmass? We created
Ministries to exploit the 20 per cent — coal, mines, petroleum, rural
development etc and they all use and abuse forest India — but what
stopped us from creating a dedicated Ministry to protect our natural
treasures? Is it because vested interests want to plunder these
treasures?
Create a new federal arm then the restructuring of non-functioning
mechanisms in the states must follow; but after the federal structures
are created. This country has had enough committees and enquiries — it
is all eyewash and endless bits of paper collect dust in the corridors
of the Ministry.
We have no more time, patience or tolerance for this. Every time a
massacre of animals surfaces we rush forward to neutralise criticism by
instituting committees and enquiries that are quickly forgotten. The
root of the problem is in the fact that we have no governance, which is
effective in this sector and the helpless wildlife and forest wing in
the Ministry of Environment and Forests is only an advisor whom no one
listens to and all it does today is disburse money to centrally
sponsored schemes.
The poor Indian Forest Service has been so badly kicked around in the
last decade that its cadres and staff are frustrated and demoralised.
This is the service, with a staff-strength of more than 1,60,000,
responsible for protecting 20 per cent of India. How many of us Indians
know that more than 50 of their staff get killed by poachers and timber
mafia each year?
As heinous as the crimes against wild animals are the crimes against
their protectors. We create Army Welfare Funds but our politicians
don’t even talk of Forest Welfare Funds or the plight of hundreds of
widows across this country whose men were brutally murdered while
protecting the forests of this nation. These are the unsung heroes of
India, the great guardians of our natural heritage.
The forests are the greatest treasures left and I believe that our
political leadership has its own vested interests in leaving this
sector unguarded and open to plunder and loot. It is now up to us — we
the people — to force change, join hands, close ranks and ensure that a
new mechanism comes into being that protects our wilderness, our
natural treasures and our rich wildlife because it is this reservoir
that must be secured for a generation of unborn Indians.
We must act now. There is little time left. We can not permit this
country to be shamed the way it has been by incidents like the
Hyderabad zoo debacle, Nandankanan and so much more.
http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/h3i16.htm
http://www.indev.nic.in/wwf/feldstr2.htm
The hidden danger facing the tiger
Action to prevent tiger poaching in India is beginning to have some
success, but it is not matched by programmes to tackle a more insidious
and equally dangerous threat : the steady loss of the animals that
tigers feed on. Usha Rai writes.
As if life was not difficult enough for the tigers, a new threat is
emerging with the slow depletion of their prey base. Animals such as
the sambar, barasingha, cheetal, wild boar, and young gaur form the
basic diet of the tiger, and if they are in short supply tigers are
forced to kill and eat what is in abundance - cattle.
This is bad news in more ways than one, because when tigers prey on
livestock they provoke retaliation from local farmers, who often poison
them. The same is true of leopards, which are increasingly attacking
cattle, dogs and even people in the hills of Uttar Pradesh. There are
lessons here for conservationists who, so far, have tended to focus on
the conflict between man and predator in relation to the growing
pressure on protected areas from people and livestock. But evidence is
increasing that attention must be paid to ways of rebuilding the prey
base of the big cats.
Prey depletion is a reality government officials are reluctant to admit
because it would reflect poor management of National Parks and
protected areas. But a marked fall in the population of swamp deer,
sambar, cheetal, and wild boar has been noted for some years by people
working in protected areas. While tiger poaching raises an outcry, the
surreptitious hunting of prey species continues without protest.
Sanjay Deb Roy, of the Indian Board for Wild Life and the Tiger
Steering Committee, reports that in a journey covering thousands of
kilometres between Bandhavgarh and Panna, in Madhya Pradesh, he saw
only one wild boar and none of the herbivores who form the real prey
base of the big cats.
There has been no specific study of the tiger's prey base, according to
Brigadier Ranjit Talwar, coordinator of the Tiger Conservation
Programme of WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature. Talwar has covered forest
areas of Bihar and almost all of central and northern Andhra Pradesh
and he reports severe depletion of the prey base, except in two areas.
In Dudhwa, for instance, the barasingha population has crashed because
of the large scale poaching, Talwar says. The venison goes right up to
Lucknow, while from Palamau and Valmiki it goes to the kitchens of the
wealthy in Patna. People can order meat of their choice and collect it
within two or three days. Cheetal poaching is also rampant in some
places.
Close to the Royal Bardia National Park in Nepal, the lush green
Katerniaghat was once rich in tiger prey species, but the magnificent
swamp deer has been wiped out, there are few barasingha, and in three
days Talwar did not see a single sambar, though he did sight a cheetal.
Ulhas Karanth, a distinguished wildlife scientist, says a tiger has to
kill 40 to 50 animals in a year, with a female raising three juvenile
cubs requiring up to 70. On average, a tiger kills once every seven to
eight days, although a tigress with cubs is compelled to kill more
often to feed her young.
S. C Sharma, of the Environment and Forest Ministry, however, believes
that the prey base is adequate for the tiger in most national parks and
tiger reserves - though he does admit to poaching problems with
herbivores in some areas. As a first step, a five-kilometre boundary
wall is to be built at one Park to stop herbivores from straying out of
the protected area. But more important is the fact that Sharma has
agreed to include a study of the prey base in a sample tiger census at
10 national parks and tiger reserves.
There is, after all, little point in protecting the tiger if it is not
going to have enough to eat.- WWF-India Features
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20000717/wildlife.html
TIGERS
Catastrophe
As eleven tigers die in an Orissa zoo, officials point at a virus but
perhaps it's their own apathy that is to blame
By Ruben Banerjee
They didn't exactly get to rule the wild. But as prized exhibits in the
sprawling 450-hectare Nandankanan Zoological Park on the outskirts of
Bhubaneswar, they did rule the hearts of thousands of visitors who
filed past their barbed enclosures every year. Their huge fan
following, however, did precious little to insure them against destiny
and when their ends came, it turned out to be swift and messy.
VECTOR VICTIMS
June 20: Debashish, an adult Royal Bengal tiger, falls ill. June 23:
The tiger dies. A post mortem suggests it had died of trypanosomiasis,
a vector-borne parasitic infection. July 2: Sagar, an adult tiger,
shows symptoms of the same disease. In the 10 days after Debashish's
death, the zoo authorities take no action. July 3: Apprehensive that a
silent epidemic is lurking, the zoo authorities give prophylactic drugs
to 16 tigers in the immediate vicinity of Debashish's cage July 4:
Sagar dies. During the night three tigers die. July 5-6: Six more
tigers die.
According to zoo records, the carnage started on June 23 when a tiger
named Debashish died. A post mortem suggested that it had died of
trypanosomiasis -- a vector-borne parasitic infection which is endemic
in this region. On the morning of July 2, Sagar, a full-grown tiger,
started showing symptoms of the same disease and was administered an
injection of Berenil -- an antibiotic. But by then Sagar's illness had
alarmed and activated the normally complacent zoo officials.
Apprehensive that a silent epidemic could be lurking, they decided to
give prophylactic drugs to the tigers in the immediate vicinity as a
pre-emptive measure. Therefore, the following day, Monday -- when the
zoo is closed to visitors -- 16 tigers were administered the same
injection.
The tigers nevertheless started dying and the efforts of the zoo
officials came to nought. Each animal tottered for a while before
losing control over their bodies. As their temperatures shot up, some
suffered seizures while others vomitted blood. Some defecated
involuntarily. Almost in proportion to the stench filling up the cages,
the body count piled up. The first to die was Sagar on the evening of
July 4. During the night, three more died. Five tigers died the next
morning. By daybreak, Nandankanan which prided itself as the zoo with
the largest number of tigers in the country, had its reputation in
tatters.
As the lifeless bodies of 11 -- one more died on Thursday -- adult
Royal Bengal tigers, of which seven were of the rare white tiger
species, lay sprawled in the enclosures where they ought to have been
regally roaming, Nandankanan fell to deeper depths of disrepute. For
some time now, the management -- or rather mismanagement -- of the zoo
had been a cause for worry. Only in February, a tiger had sneaked out
of its cage in the zoo and mauled a passerby to death. And then again,
in April, an armed intruder had killed a Nilgai and slit its throat.
The murky goings on within the zoo did trigger public outrage at
frequent intervals. But nothing compared to the outcry that the death
of the 11 tigers evoked worldwide this time. Zoo authorities certainly
were at their old game of underplaying the gravity of the disaster and
their role in it, identifying an outbreak of trypanosomiasis as the
true villain. But not many bought their theories. "It's a shame that so
many tigers had to die in such a gory fashion. It's criminal," accuses
Biswajit Mohanty of the Wildlife Society of Orissa. Even the normally
reticent Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was charged up. "It's a colossal
waste. Responsibilities, if any, will certainly be fixed," Patnaik said
as he surveyed the dead tigers in the zoo.
This brings the moot question to the fore: who else were at fault,
besides the obvious parasites and the forest flies which spread the
disease? The Orissa Government has formed a six-member high-powered
committee comprising wildlife experts drawn from around the country to
fix the cause of the deaths. Interim post mortem reports, going by the
lesions on the internal organs of the dead tigers, suggest that the
tigers died of trypanosomiasis. But go by the chain of events as they
happened and there are more posers than answers available.
Why did the officials wait till Sagar fell ill before deciding to act?
In any case, couldn't they have decided to go for prophylactic
treatment immediately after Debashish died and it was known that
trypanosomiasis had struck? Could it be also that administering of
prophylactic drugs was wrong? Is it that the injections triggered
adverse reactions?
While possibilities are plenty, what is sure is the zoo authorities had
erred in their judgement. If prophylactic drugs had to be given, they
needed to have been given much earlier. The delay, many independent
experts feel, may have been deadly. "By the time the injections were
administered, the parasitic infection was already in an advanced stage
and the injections did little," admits S.C. Mishra, dean of
Bhubaneswar's College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, whose
faculty members carried out the post mortems. Trypanosomiasis is no
stranger to this part of the world. It had struck Alipur Zoo in
Calcutta in 1967, killing seven tigers and leopards. Even as late as
last year, it struck at Nandankanan, killing three tigers.
The use of prophylactic injections is also being questioned. Berenil is
an accepted line of treatment for such infections, but many vets claim
it's only curative and not pre-emptive in nature. As one doctor puts
it: "The authorities here must have panicked and decided to administer
them. The consequences were fatal." Buttressing this line of argument
is the fact that the dead tigers are among the 16 which were injected.
Those not given the injections -- Nandankanan had a total tiger
population of 55 -- are hale and hearty.
The veterinary fraternity is certainly going to debate the tiger deaths
for a long time. But what is established already and needs no further
debate is that something is terribly rotten at Nandankanan. Chief
Wildlife Warden D.S. Patnaik who should have been the overall incharge
of the zoo was divested of his charge last month as he was reportedly
probing into financial mismanagement in the zoo. The zoo was placed
under his boss Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) S.K. Patnaik.
Guidelines of the Central Zoo Authority clearly stipulate that every
zoo must have a fulltime supervisor. In the case of Nandankanan, it
only has an ex-officio director, B.C. Prusty, who as the state's
conservator of wildlife is also in charge of six other wildlife
divisions. Strangely, the main office of the zoo is not within its
premises but 15 km away in Bhubaneswar. And none of the zoo brass --
the director and wildlife conservator officer included -- stays within
the zoo premises. Prusty's statement sums up official cussedness: "We
did our best."
A public-interest writ filed by the Wildlife Society of Orissa is
already pending in the High Court against the zoo authorities since
1998. The petition makes for disturbing reading. As many as 50 acres of
the zoo are under illegal encroachment, at certain stretches there are
no compound walls and animals are freely poached within zoo premises.
In its statement given in the same court, the authorities admitted that
poaching was going on within its precincts. There is more: though the
entire zoo is now a sanctuary, local villagers are still issued
licences for controlled fishing in the Kanjia Lake that is spread over
50 acres. This is blatantly illegal: rules say sanctuaries cannot be
put under any use other than for purposes of protection and development
of wildlife.
With a shoestring annual budget of Rs 2. 5 crore, of which 60 per cent
is accounted for by wages of its 250-odd staff, Nandankanan is in bad
shape. The zoo has three vets to look after its 1,100 inmates, but none
of them has had specialised training in zoo and wild animal healthcare
and management. A vet had gone to New Jersey for training, but was
promptly posted elsewhere on returning. Nandankanan's name literally
suggests an idyllic paradise. But the lifeless bodies of the tigers are
grim reminders of the park's unfortunate transformation from paradise
to hell.
http://wild.allindia.com/case11.htm
Unsettling nature Shortsighted conservation destabilises India's
wildlife habitats Frontline <http://www.frontlineonline.com>
A Damocles' sword hangs precariously over India's best wildlife
habitats and its several million human inhabitants. District Collectors
in many states are proposing to delete or denotify national parks and
wildlife sanctuaries in whole or in part. Some, such as Great Himalayan
National Park in Himachal Pradesh and Semarsot Sanctuary in Madhya
Pradesh, have already fallen victim. Ironically, this threat is an
unintended consequence of the well-meaning but short-sighted action of
a prominent conservation agency. Not only are wildlife habitats
threatened, but lakhs of people are likely to be alienated and
dispossessed of their natural resource livelihood base. The only ones
who will benefit are a host of vested interests --- mine-owners,
politicians, traders, dam-builders --- who will gain easy entry into
these sensitive areas. The background India's 540-plus national parks
and sanctuaries (protected areas, or PAs, for short) harbour many of
its last large stretches of natural habitat and viable wildlife
populations. They also protect many of India's crucial watersheds, and
offer critical ecosystem functions which are of unmeasurable economic
and social benefit. Very few of these PAs are, however,
the 'pristine', 'virgin' areas that they are portrayed to be. They are
inhabited and used by several million human beings and livestock.
Amongst these are some of India's most ancient communities, forest-
dwelling tribes such as the Chenchus (Andhra Pradesh) and the Korkus
(Maharashtra). In one way of the other , most of these people are
dependent on the natural resources of these PAs, and have customary or
formal rights to such resources. The Wild Life (Protection) Act of
1972 requires that state governments, after declaring their intention
to notify an area as a PA, have to "settle" these rights. The two main
categories of PAs in India differ in this respect. In a national park,
no right can be allowed to continue. In a sanctuary, on the other hand,
rights can be allowed, if the state's Chief Wildlife Warden and the
district authorities feel this is necessary. Where rights are
extinguished, appropriate compensation or alternatives have to be
provided. But in both national parks and sanctuaries, state governments
have the power to delete portions of the intended PA, where rights have
been claimed and are not possible to settle. After all this is over,
the PA is finally notified, with the originally intended boundaries, or
altered ones. Most state governments have been rather lax about
finishing this procedure. A study of about 260 PAs, in the late 1980s,
carried out by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA),
showed that settlement was pending for 92% of sanctuaries and 60% of
national parks. In many of these cases, settlement had not been
completed for over 25 years! There was therefore great uncertainty
about whether people actually had rights to a PA's resources or not, a
situation not conducive to either the proper management of the PA or
the livelihood security of the local people. The order and its
consequences In 1995, the World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-I)
approached the Supreme Court, urging it to direct state governments to
fully implement the Wild Life Act. In 1997, the Court directed all
states to complete settlement of people's rights within one year. This
seemed a major victory for conservationists. But WWF-I had not
informed the Court of the enormous complexity and scale of the
settlement process that would have to be carried out. Determining and
settling the rights of at least 4-5 million people is no easy task. It
is made especially difficult in a situation where many rights are not
even recorded, local people are illiterate or ignorant of how to claim
rights, and the process is to be carried out by already over-burdened
district officials. Members of the environmental group Kalpavriksh
have started piecing together information on the impacts of the Supreme
Court order, and the emerging picture is frightening: In Himachal
Pradesh, a part of the Great Himalayan National Park has just been
deleted in May 1999 (see box), and at least 4 other PAs are targeted
for full or partial denotification or deletion: Lippa Asrang, Sangla,
Shikari Devi, and Rupi Bhaba Sanctuaries. The total area threatened is
several hundred square kilometers (upto 15-20% of the total PA coverge
of the state!), only some of which is inhabited. These PAs are home to
threatened species like Musk deer, Snow leopard, Blue sheep, Ibex, and
Himalayan tahr, and thousands of other wildlife species. In Gujarat,
there are proposals for deletion of areas from Balaram Ambajee
Sanctuary, Dhrangadhra Wild Ass Sanctuary, Kachch Desert Sanctuary,
Marine National Park, and Gir National Park. Two of these, Dhrangadhra
and Gir, harbour the last populations of severely endangered species,
the Indian wild ass and the Asiatic lion, respectively. Precise
information for these is not available. In Madhya Pradesh, 40% of
Semarsot Sanctuary has already been knocked off, and there are
proposals for similar action in the case of others like Son Ghariyal
Sanctuary and Sanjay National Park. Some of the Semarsot deletion was
perhaps justified, but in the process considerable area of wildlife
value has also been sacrificed. In Maharashtra, a substantial chunk of
Koyna Sanctuary is proposed for deletion, and there may be others for
which information is not available. In Goa, deletion is proposed for
Mollem Sanctuary, in an area where ancillary activities to mining are
ongoing. This will open up the rest of the sanctuary for further
expansion of disturbing activities, including a thoroughfare for
minerals transport. Why this spate of deletions? Very soon after the
Supreme Court order, some NGOs had predicted that many district
collectors may delete parts of PAs with human habitation and/or rights,
rather than get into the headache of settling rights. The Wild Life Act
allows for this step to be taken, without having to take central
government clearance. This is precisely what is happening. In many
instances, the Forest Department is opposing such proposals, and has
been partially successful in some (e.g. Koyna Sanctuary, Maharashtra,
and Son Ghariyal Sanctuary, M.P.). However, there are other cases where
the Department has either agreed, or buckled under pressure. The most
shocking one is that of the Great Himalayan National Park (see box).
Who really benefits? The reason stated by state governments for
proposing deletion is that it will free villagers of the shackles
imposed by the Wild Life Act. Undoubtedly this could be a valid
argument in some instances. However, evidence seems to also suggest
hidden motives in many cases. The Great Himalayan National Park is a
prime example (see box). If the Parbati Hydel project comes through
here, there is little likelihood that local communities will benefit.
If anything, the project and its ancillary activities (tunneling,
roads, blasting, labour camps, etc.) will only take away or destroy the
natural resources on which the livelihood of these villages is
dependent. This is true of many or most of the areas where
denotification is proposed. Hydel projects are upcoming or proposed in
Sangla and Rupi Bhaba Sanctuaries of Himachal. In Goa, an area earlier
deleted from the Mollem Sanctuary ostensibly for freeing people's
rights, is now subjected to iron-ore mining. In Koyna Sanctuary,
Maharashtra, Kalpavriksh members discovered that all along the edge of
the Sanctuary area proposed for deletion, bauxite prospecting and the
construction of a huge windmills complex were taking place. Himalayan
Folly On May 28, 1999, the Himachal Pradesh government deleted 1060 ha.
from Jiwa Nal valley of the Great Himalayan National Park. The
ostensible reason was the presence of two villages in the area. But
this is patently absurd, for these villages contain a tiny handful of
families who do not need such a large area. The actual motive is the
proposed Parbati Hydro-electricity Project, which was stalled so far
due to the Park's existence. The settlement order came at just the
right time for the project proponents; the District Collector
recommended deletion of this part of Jiwa Nal from the Park, and the
state government quickly (within one week!) processed the
recommendation. Shockingly, the Chief Wildlife Warden certified that
the deleted area was of little ecological significance! The Jiwa Nal
area of the Park is actually considered to be one of its prime wildlife
habitats. Wildlife Institute of India scientists have listed several
threatened plant and animals species from here, and are firm in their
opinion that the hydel project, if built, will be enormously
destructive. Deletions and denotifications of PAs will only benefit a
small fraction of local communities, which has access to dominant
market and political forces. The major beneficiary will be the powerful
commercial-industrial lobby. Having devoured substantial parts of
India's natural habitats outside PAs, this lobby is now eyeing the
minerals, timber, hydro-potential, and other 'raw materials' that
are "locked up" inside PAs. The settlement order has come as a golden
opportunity for them. But if they are not going to benefit, why are
local villagers not protesting against the denotifications? The reasons
are simple. Orthodox conservationists have over the last few decades
made enemies of the very people who could have been their strongest
allies, by advocating policies which have severely restricted the
access of local communities to the resources of PAs. The settlement
procedure itself is intensifying such alienation. In many PAs, the
Collectors' notice to claim rights is being mistaken as an eviction
notice, and forest officials or local NGOs are sometimes fuelling this
fear. To some extent, this scare is even justified. In Madhya Pradesh,
for instance, some Collectors have issued a notice which states that
after the settlement procedure is complete, no one will be allowed to
collect non-timber forest produce. For tribals whose household and
livelihood requirements are substantially dependent on such collection,
the notice may as well have said: "get out"! In most cases, rights
which are not already recorded in government documents, or which
are 'intangible', do not even figure in the Collectors' settlement
procedure. People within Reserved Forests, or those in 'forest
villages' (without revenue status), are being ignored. In some
exceptional cases, Collectors have conscientiously recorded and settled
rights, including allowing many to continue, such as in Jamva Ramgarh
Sanctuary (Rajasthan). However, by and large, the end result of the
ongoing settlement procedure in many PAs is an increase in hostility
between local communities and government officials. It is no wonder
that PA deletions are not only not being opposed, but sometimes being
welcomed by local people. However, where informed of the real
implications of denotification, communities have not been so welcoming.
In Koyna Sanctuary, Maharashtra, villagers and some local NGOs were
initially happy about the Collector's proposal to delete portions of
the Sanctuary. But when Kalpavriksh members pointed out that such a
move might make mining or other destructive developments in adjacent
areas much easier, they agreed that the continuation of the sanctuary
status may be better. Activist groups working amongst tribals in Madhya
Pradesh's PAs, such as Ekta Parishad, have also recently recognised the
need to minimise reductions in PA area. But what about resettling
people out of PAs, as may conservationists demand? This is not really a
viable or just option. According to the Madhya Pradesh government,
resettling all the people from within its 40-plus PAs would require Rs.
1500 crores --- while its annual budget for wildlife is a mere Rs. 4
crores! Multiply this to the whole country, and the financial
implications are staggering. In any case, even if money were to be made
available, governments have woefully inadequate social and
administrative capacity to successfully resettle such large numbers of
people. The root of the problems created by the Supreme Court order is
an extreme conservationist position that wildlife can only survive in
human-free conditions. Undoubtedly, several wildlife species need an
undisturbed environment to thrive in. 'Inviolate zones' are therefore
of great significance, and India must strive to secure such areas over
a substantial part of its natural ecosystems. But to advocate that all
wildlife habitats must become human-free, is a great ecological and
social folly. It is such a folly that has led to the deletion of area
in Great Himalayan Park --- for the Wild Life Act, based on an
exclusionary model of conservation, dictated that a national park
cannot have people inside. Never mind that the two tiny villages inside
the Park were causing no ecological damage, and indeed could have
helped to conserve the Park's wildlife if ensured the benefits of such
conservation. What is the alternative? Extremist positions from
conservationists (resettle all people outside PAs) or social activists
(denotify PAs and scrap the Wild Life Act) are of little help in
resolving the crisis. More positive, radical options are available, to
reconcile conservation and basic livelihood interests. In instances
like Great Himalayan Park, conversion of inhabited proportions of the
national park to a sanctuary status would help avoid both displacement
and denotification, since rights can be allowed to continue in a
sanctuary. Such a step was already earlier taken for the Sainj Valley
of the Park, where the presence of two villages necessitated its
conversion into a sanctuary. Wildlife researchers Nima Manjrekar and
Yash Veer Bhatnagar have argued, in the case of Pin Valley National
Park of Himachal Pradesh, that the conversion of the park into a
sanctuary and allowing the few dozen resident grazier families to
remain inside would serve the cause of wildlife conservation better
than displacing them. The Divisional Forest Officer in charge of Anshi
National Park, Karnataka, has forcefully argued that the six villages
inside the Park, slated for displacement as per the law, should be
allowed to remain inside, as they are his only supporters against
poaching and wood theft by outsiders. But local people cannot simply be
used as labour for conservation work. Their access to traditional bona
fide and survival resources must be ensured, as basic rights along with
a set of responsibilities. This would be their greatest stake to
conserve these resources. Such an option is available within the Wild
Life Act (Section 23(2)c), provided wildlife authorities are able to
perceive local people's involvement as being beneficial to wildlife
conservation. In Uttar Pradesh, the state government recently allowed
grass removal from within PAs (including national parks), noting that
this was helpful in fire prevention. In Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple
Sanctuary, Karnataka, NGOs have helped the Soliga tribals to obtain a
better livelihood from medicinal plants, while enrolling their help in
conserving the PA and its wildlife. In Kailadevi Sanctuary, Rajasthan,
self-initiated forest protection committees are doing what the Forest
Department simply does not have the resources to do: maintaining a
daily check against cutting of trees and hunting of wildlife. This does
not mean that all human activities within all PAs are beneficial;
indeed, in many PAs, there is resource over-exploitation or over-
grazing, and alternatives have to be urgently found for these
activities, but within an overall system of integrating conservation
and livelihoods. Yet another option will present itself once a series
of proposed changes take place in the Wild Life Act, including the
creation of two new categories of PAs: Community Reserves and
Conservation Reserves. Instead of denotifying current PAs, they could
be converted into such new categories. There is also the possibility,
already used in some places, to create appropriate no-use and multiple
use zones, within each PA. Such zonation should be planned with local
communities, and legally sanctified, otherwise it will be of little
practical relevance. Final hearings are ongoing in the WWF case. The
Supreme Court must be made aware of the results of its order, and urged
to direct the preparation of detailed guidelines for the settlement
process. These guidelines should direct the establishment of customary
bona fide rights of local people, specify a reasonable time frame, and
stop state governments from deleting/denotifying PAs except where there
is absolutely no wildlife value left. Special officers must be
appointed for this purpose, and the process must be fully
participatory. A group of conservation and social action NGOs has filed
an intervention in the ongoing case to this effect, and WWF-I has
committed to taking up the matter with the central government and the
Court. Another opportunity that must be seized is the Committee to
Rationalise the Boundaries of PAs, set up by the Union Ministry of
Environment and Forests. Consisting mostly of wildlife
conservationists, this Committee is expected to recommend a re-
alignment, where necessary, of boundaries of individual PAs to help
enhance their ecological viability and to avoid conflicts with local
communities. However, it is critical that this Committee does not fall
into the same trap that many District Collectors are falling into, by
recommending deletions or denotifications in a bid to avoid the more
complicated, but much more preferable, process of integrating
livelihoods with PA management objectives. A national workshop on these
issues (Third National Consultation on Wildlife Conservation and
People's Livelihood Rights, 1-3 May, 1999) was recently organised by
Ekta Parishad and Kalpavriksh in Bhopal. Over 50 social activists,
villagers, and conservationists, who participated, demanded that
deletions or denotifications be minimised, and advocated a "new model
of conservation that involves local people in the planning, management,
and monitoring of wildlife habitats, including protected areas…which
ensures the livelihood security of local communities and the
conservation of natural resources and wildlife, by: integrating
traditional and modern ecological knowledge, ensuring customary rights
and responsibilities over natural resources, strengthening village-
level institutions and capacities, coordinating various government-
level departments, and formulating enabling laws and policies."
Settlement of rights as it is currently going on, will threaten any
move towards such a new model. The process needs immediate re-
orientation, both to avoid the destabilisation of India's last great
wildlife habitats, and the undermining of the livelihood base of
millions of people.
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