Rewildling India an Aid to Heal Nature

Whence Project Tiger was launched the majestic beast came to life for sooner or later it would be a success. It has worked, and the population of tigers in India is rising albeit gradually. But in between lot is happening that is discouraging to the conservationists and the well-wishers of the environment.  

After years of degradation of our ecosystems primarily for resources, a contingency has arisen. The battered systems are being subject to an irrevocable degraded status. The demand for timber, burgeoning settlements, and clearance for agriculture besides the biotic pressure created by ever-growing livestock has wreaked havoc on our ecosystems since population increase has skyrocketed in India. Now as the new paradigm sets in the 21st Century the development mantra of ever-changing ruling dispensations in the Center and State is challenging the stabilization that had taken place in the last few decades.         

The urgency to suddenly become a developed state with an ever-rising and robust economy is throwing caution to the winds. Even in spite of the successful tiger conservation program at the helm, the changing population dynamics of big cats are asking for more land in the tiger reserves. This idea of man-animal coexistence in the buffer is at best chimerical. The rising instances of man-animal conflict narrate a sordid saga of failed land management in the country. 

In an overpopulated country like India with most of the population living under impoverished circumstances, development urgency can be understood. But then what are we going to achieve by subjecting the precious ecosystems to denudation, and ill-planned developmental practices like stripping off land to make way for facilitating linear development that cuts through our forests and changes the flow of our rivers. Without any ecological studies to justify the present and future impact on the environment and the well-being of the ecosystem as a whole we are certainly heading for a disaster.   

Since the turn of this century, development goals are being conceived and shaped keeping the Western Scale as a model. But is this going to work, is the haste sustainable? When it comes to engineering precious natural lands to make way for urbanization, dams, factories, roads, and highways we are throwing caution to the wind, and the warnings by ecologists are shunned as a cry wolf syndrome. The legal framework too somehow bends in favor of allowing the disastrous structural changes on some rationale or another.                

If we look at the long-term scenario not much is going to change irrespective of who is at the helm of governance. The voices promoting caution, rising protests, and warnings eventually drown in the rising crescendo of an economic revolution that the country is seeking since independence.

Before the roar turns into a whimper we should be searching for alternatives that can be promoted as people's initiatives perhaps supported by the NGOs and other concerned organizations.      

In rewilding lies the answer using endemic floral and fauna. This is easier said than done taking into account the pressures on land and the complexities of living systems that support the preservation and conservation of species on Earth. This should come about with the repair of degraded ecosystems by planting endemic floral elements and rejuvenating wildlife by conserving or reintroducing locally extinct life forms. 

As a matter of fact, this is what our PAs or protected areas are doing quite successfully. But as regards Government initiatives there is a limit thanks to the populist nature of our democracy. Initiatives outside the PAs will never take birth or even if they do the half heart implementation will not benefit the degraded and fragile ecosystems. This is not entirely true here the discussion is about enhancing public participation not unduly criticize the Governmental initiatives. 

Plantation has been carried out on large scale in the country and the change from creating mono-cultures like in the past to stress upon endemic species is definitely encouraging. The translocation of wild species from places of reasonable abundance to other destinations in order to reestablish extinct populations or to balance scarce populations in order to boost breeding has been done by the administration quite successfully. These rewilding initiatives have come about as a silver lining in the clouds but much is to desire. How we come out of the stone age and yet retain and sustain our resources is a matter that needs dire attention. This would require the ruling dispensations to be more attentive to public discourse on environmental matters. This would help extricate us from a clueless and disastrous developmental approach that would not be sustainable and harm our environment in totality. I am not talking here about committee members most of whom are yes Sir people in it for name, fame, and associated privileges. India does not lack apolitical, committed conservationists and people conscious of sustainable practices that would preserve our ecosystems for eternity and prevent environmental degradation.         

We will have to curb our commercial instincts which like most Nations are at their peak. Licensing for extreme commercial gains irrationally without any study is against the principle of rational utilization of crucial resources. Unchecked and ill-planned activities like mining, and exploitation of fossil fuels like oil and coal will be disastrous and we are already paying a price due to resultant global warming. 

Public participation is the crux of alternative conservation practices. In India, there are individuals and NGOs who have already laid fine examples of what we as people can do albeit in a limited manner. 

In India, a section of bureaucracy works in complete isolation and even has a discretionary attitude towards the public. This could be described as a colonial approach that long after independence still persists. We as a people should be part of our policies shaping the country and insuring safeguards that would make life much more secure and contended for our future generations.         

India is a wise old country in the last five thousand years or more we have ingrained lot many virtues thanks to Vedic civilization and one of them is conservation ethos. In our blind rush for wealth, we should not sacrifice the principles valued by our sages and wise men. There is hope for there is within every India still present the Vedic ethos.  Earth! Water! Fire! Long Live India!               

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

He also provides SEO and Website Content in English.

Uday Teaches Internet Marketing Classes in his hometown in Jabalpur in Summer.  

He can be contacted at: 

pateluday90@hotmail.com

                    

Tiger Conservation: Rebuilding Our Ecosystems

As environmentalists warn us the 6th Mass Extinction is on the way. This is a certainty until unless we do something to stem the rot and put brakes on demise of many species.

How?

There could be a vast cornucopia of solutions but let us pay greater attention to what we have in hand...and that is the remaining ecosystems. The critical tiger habitats are limited in area but they are surrounded by badly fragmented and overused lands surviving under constant threat from human encroachment and biotic pressures. Subject to overgrazing by the livestock, they offer stiff competition to the wilderness that prevails. The periphery of tiger reserves, they are called the buffer because this land is crucial for the survival of the tiger in India. As a matter of practice or conservation technique we have to tackle each and every factor/element imperative or influential in the survival of the big cats in India.   

These core verdant lands are complete ecosystems albeit drastically reduced due to human activities. In India, most of these areas come under the aegis of Project Tiger and are notified as tiger reserves. Also called protected areas they are a blessing for all life forms with beleaguered existence. The vital inviolate core offers a place for the successful breeding of neglected life forms and protects them from ever-expanding agriculture and marauding humans' ways.     

Buffer zone management become crucial in the current circumstances of dire need. The viable lands where all life forms can live and flourish had been badly reduced due to urbanization, encroachment, agriculture, and in some places commercial activities and manufacturing. The regulated ecotourism efforts in the buffer have proved to be beneficial and fetch revenue and keep the areas under the scanner besides development initiatives for the upkeep of the ecosystem. It provides employment to local laborers, guides, and drivers.  

In most of the buffer zones especially those surrounding the major tiger reserves protection is accorded. Patrolling is a means of according physical protection to these lands but the biotic pressure, culling of trees, and encroachment by agricultural practices to some extent continues illegally.       

In the buffer limiting human population and limiting land occupancy (strictly) to the original inhabitants is imperative and so is the need to discourage commercial activities therein. This sounds discriminatory but then we have to understand the right land use patterns taking these steps would mean large areas secured for the forests, grasslands, and rivers the natural earthly phenomenons. We cannot put these lands to use for greed as well as for our economic survival because we have enough that is beyond repair - taken over by agriculture, settlements, and manufacturing not forgetting the usurpation of forests due to reckless mining.   

The time has come for extensive in-situ conservation, especially to rewild the areas with the potential for regeneration like the buffer zones with extensive plantation drives using indigenous species. In order to ameliorate the damage done we have to take some steps that could redefine land use patterns in India. Limiting human populations and livestock - most livestock is unproductive anyway - is a priority...if not the complete trans location of people. This approach may be seen as regressive or discriminatory but in a later period, this will help check climate change...turn it favorably for the existence and continuation of life on Earth...and yes the ecosystem repair efforts will provide employment to the indigenous communities the right way. 

It would be unfair to say that protection offered and plantation drives are not being done by the present dispensation but this has to be done on a larger scale. The departments can rarely influence the scale of activities required due to political and administrative constraints hence public pressure is required in circumstances like these.  

We have to learn to speak or express what we deem to be right in the management of our wilderness and the Nation as a whole. Sitting mutely will unfold the disaster in making with a ferocity that will eventually destroy life on Earth. The time has come to tackle climate change seriously with full-scale efforts. 

Plant a few indigenous plants in your home that is the right way to begin.

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Uday blogs on conservation and the environment. He is a freelance naturalist in India.
Contact: pateluday90@hotmail.com
9755089323