Conservation: It's Pay Back Time

Our  Earth: A Saga of Exploitation

Not only extensive farming, poaching, wood logging, and hunting have denuded our wilds we conveniently seek to forgive our sins whence it comes to breakneck industrial revolution and urbanization. Like agriculture, large industries and industrial estates scrap off nature from Earth in long strips along with associated urbanization in our towns and cities. 

In the past few centuries, we have hastened the demise of many invaluable ecosystems to alternate them with nonviable human constructs and the process goes on. The developed countries have been quick to extensively exploit natural resources and strip off ecosystems forests, grasslands, and rivers to name a few in order to develop in material terms without digging deep into ramifications. Most countries are stripped of natural lands and they have virtually exterminated their wilderness. But there is no looking back,  and if there is at places it is weak and without commitment. As a consequence, we are facing climate change and species extinction due to the dismembering of remaining ecosystems, pollution, human intrusions, and alternating natural systems to suit our exigencies.             

Earth is supposed to be shared among trillions of life forms thus maintaining an equilibrium so that life sustenance mechanism remains inviolate. Large chunks of ecosystems have been decimated for crops without any circumspection, and industrialization, and urbanization is taking place with haste. We are turning settlements into cement jungles and urban ghettos. 

All we look at is modern infrastructure and the gleaming societies and lifestyles they generate forgetting the dead that lies beneath. The industrial revolution has been a major disaster and caused wars innumerable, social disparities as well as grave harm to the environment. Global warming is an evident phenomenon among even those who are not erudite or aware, and the suffering is taking a toll in terms of health physical and mental.   

It is difficult to hinder this blitzkrieg because dispensations do not bow down and at the most pay lip service to conservation. Maintaining an equilibrium would require some committed steps for preservation even if the infrastructure buildup is halted. We simply cannot regenerate the complex living systems that nature does. This is rabid development is the trend everywhere, and most vicious in overpopulated countries trying to emerge from ongoing poverty without understanding the route they are adopting. As urban ghettos increase poverty will as well for we see life not as sustainable but gauge impoverished societies keeping the yardstick of measure highlighting disparity with those well developed (sic). There is no limit to the demands of humanity, and we will perish if we fulfill them at the cost of nature. Are we going to need artificial glass bubbles with oxygen supplies to survive on Earth in the future?       

To keep industries alive and the economy booming we continue to exploit natural resources which are already dwindling. In economic haste, we are not using the resources in a judicious manner, and are not at all looking for renewable on a war footing. Development is the mantra of disaster and the infrastructure built up in hinterlands in countries like India is a scourge with no mitigation seemingly possible. Rather than judging the economy by scale, we must peep into the environmental disaster we are leaving in the wake. We need to define our basic needs and stick to them.         

Poverty alleviation should not come about through the industrial revolution, it should come by rational use of renewable energy and a paradigm shift in our lifestyles. Too much energy consumption or unprecedented use of natural resources has wreaked havoc on our planet and we need to stem the rot. The major stress factor is not poverty but our excessive consumption of fossil fuels and other natural resources. Controlling the population is wise but there is no such urgency among various countries and demographics. Population control should be imperative, especially in Asia and Africa.         

Time to Pay Back 

We need reforestation, conservation of wildlife, habitat repair, and preservation of the ecosystem that supports them, and to stop the destruction of tropical forests going on on large scale.  We will have to redefine our lifestyle and consumption pattern and wean out what is unsustainable with vigor and commitment.     

We will have to have a methodology in place as far as industrialization and infrastructure build-up is taking place. We will have to draw out sustainable plans and practices which mitigate damage to natural lands.  Yes a lot more has to be done in order to preserve our  Earth and the efforts should come about not only from institutions but we the public as well.  

We can do it, we are successfully saving the tiger and the lion and many other endangered species and India has also preserved good enough ecosystems. There is hope! 

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Uday Works as Freelance Naturalist and Blogs on conservation, tigers, environmental issues.

He also provides SEO and Website Contents in English.

He can be contacted at:

Mail: pateluday90@hotmail.com

 Mob: 09755089323

    

Terai Arc Landscape & Tiger Corridors

That's Dudhwa my agent pointed out to me. What!Where!" All I could see were some sugar cane fields and grassy patches. Not until we cut through a dense canopy of Sal did I realize that we were at the periphery of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve.  

This was, way back few years a ago. The tiger reserve is now home to Rhino after a successful translocation. The reserve is host to the Northern Swamp deer, tigers, hispid hare, pygmy hog, wild elephants, and a number of mammals besides a large number of bird species. The region holds some rare and endangered species.     

Swamp deer was in abundance in the old time but due to excess hunting and habitat destruction, their population is limited to the tiger reserve. Singhai township is one place I frequently visited, this was once a hunting ground near the tiger reserve, and the name addresses the swamp deer. Singhai means an assemblage of horns this is in reference to the rare swamp deer species. Maharajahs and the British favored this place for hunts. Rest is the sordid saga of the destruction of wilderness in India.     

The North or Uttar Pradesh is a land of plains and intense agriculture. Heavily populated and urbanized, Dudhwa and adjoining forest patches are the few that are left. Thankfully they are under much-needed protection as wildlife sanctuaries and tiger reserves,

Dudhwa now encompasses Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and is connected to Pilibhit Tiger Reserve and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary through narrow corridors - weak and facing human intrusion. On the Nepal side, the forest contiguity is provided by Shukla Phanta Wildlife Sanctuary and Bardia National Park.       

The green corridors connect the wildlife heavens but are in much need of protection and care. The corridors are denuded in place but nevertheless, animals migrate to adjoining forests in times of stress.

A green corridor that connects Dudhwa with Shuklaphanta is  Laldhadi. The lagga-Bagga corridor connects Pilibhit to Shuklaphanta. The Kartaniaghat-Khata and Boom-Brahmadev Corridors to Shuklaphanta and Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary. The latter is in the Uttarakhand State of India. Bardia National Park in Nepal is connected with Katarniaghat through the Khata Green Corridor. Rhinos migrate to and fro through this corridor.    

Human settlements engulf and intrude on the corridors reducing connectivity and giving rise to frequent man-animal conflicts. Many years ago the region had become volatile due to frequent cases of man-eating, especially at Gola and Mohammadi townships in Lakhimpur Kheri District where Dudhwa TR and Kisanpur WLS are situated. 

Man-animal conflicts do occur in recent times but the frequency has decreased thanks to greater surveillance and conservation measures.  A lot of work is being done to repair and rejuvenate these vital passages which have resulted in some improvement. The beleaguered wilderness needs much more work to be done if the free movement of wild animals has to take place without stress.

Apart from afforestation, resource preservation including water and strict protection management has to be in place if the tiger population in Terai Arc Landscape has to bounce back. This region had a one-time abundant tiger population and a high density of prey base. The resulting denudation has had an adverse impact on the floral characteristic. Human population and land use dynamics in the present circumstances have a negative impact on the habitats resulting in fragmentation and affecting the viability of corridors used for migration. Understanding key factors that impact habitats and life forms that inhabit the ecosystems is vital for the conservation ecology of the region as a whole.