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| Forest Officers Get Protection from Harassment by Wildlife Offenders |
We are all familiar with incidents
where enforcement authorities carry out a raid or arrest suspected criminals,
and then have charges of misdemeanour filed against them by the accused. This
demoralises and discourages the officers, for they have to personally bear the
costs of their legal defence.
On 24 March 2004, a Bench of the Honourable Supreme Court of India passed a
judgement in the State of Orissa vs. Ganesh Chandra Jew case. This landmark
judgement will be of great help to enforcement agencies and prevent criminals
from abusing the law to harass upright officers.
The Court clarified the interpretation and applicability of Section 197 of the
Criminal Procedure Code. This Section states that if a State or Central
Government officer is to be prosecuted for any offence allegedly committed
during the discharge of official duties, sanction to do so is required from the
State or Central government.
The case proved to be an excellent means of clarifying this point. Ganesh Jew had been arrested by the Orissa Forest Department in 1991 for the possession of ivory tusks. He later filed a case against the Forest Department officers, stating he had been assaulted and publicly humiliated during his arrest. The officers appealed against this complaint. The case went through the court of Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Baripada, and the Orissa High Court before it finally reached the Supreme Court.
The Court categorically stated "the cognisance of any offence, by any court, is barred by Section 197 of the Code unless sanction is obtained from the appropriate authority, if the offence, alleged to have been committed, was in discharge of the official duty".
The Court went on to say, "very cognisance is barred. That is the complaint, cannot be taken notice of." [Italics added]
The Bench, consisting of Justices Doraiswamy Raju and Arijit Pasayat, opined in clear terms that while prosecuting officials have to exercise restrain when investigating a wildlife matter and arresting suspects, offenders should not be able to stop the due process of law by initiating false and frivolous complaints in order to vitiate the trial.
Lawyers from the Wildlife Protection
Society of India, who were closely monitoring this case in the Supreme Court,
believe that this judgement will go a long way in creating a safety net for
enforcement personnel investigating wildlife cases.
| Leopards caught in the crossfire |
Apr 30 (OneWorld)
Leopards caught in the crossfire between guerrillas and security
forces in India's Jammu & Kashmir have begun migrating to safer, more
populated areas, endangering both humans and themselves. Leopards and other
animals in Kashmir's forests are victims of frequent shelling exchanges across
the Line of Control dividing India and Pakistan that passes through jungles in
some places. Field observers estimate that around 1,000 leopards live in the
forests, which sprawl over 20,000 square kilometers. Says Muhammad Shafi Bucha,
a senior official in the wildlife protection department, "The heavy
deployment of security forces and the presence of militants in the forests have
disturbed Kashmir's entire wildlife population, including leopards." In a
bid to escape the guns, leopards wander into adjoining villages where they often
attack human beings or vice versa.
In the past year, at least three people, including a woman, were killed and a dozen wounded by the jungle cats. Cattle and dogs are also increasingly falling victim to the leopards, who are targeting domestic animals because of a shortage of prey. While confirming that Kashmir's leopard population is on the rise, Bucha cautions that a shrinking prey base and the use of arms in the animals' habitat is dangerous for them.
Last year, a wounded leopard, probably hit by shell shrapnel,
was spotted in the border town of Uri in north Kashmir. Increased man-animal
interactions are inevitably leading to violence. For instance, a female leopard
who had littered three cubs at a cowshed in Gulab Bagh, on the outskirts of the
capital Srinagar, attacked the cowshed owner as soon as she saw him. Another
leopard gave birth to two cubs in similar circumstances in Handwara, a town
neighboring a dense forest in the frontier district of Kupwara. North Kashmir's
wildlife warden Mushtaq Ahmad Parsa says leopards are plagued by the ingress of
human beings into their forest territory. "When these animals return
to their territories, they find human beings inhabiting them. Leopards usually
leave human beings alone, but do not hesitate to pounce on them when
confronted." Leopards who attack human beings in self defense are often
branded man eaters by the villagers, who then proceed to kill the animals. But,
wildlife experts say leopards only turn man eaters when they are old or infirm
and driven out of their habitats by younger animals. Since human beings don't
run as fast as some animals, they make easy prey for the wild cats. The attacks
are more frequent during the winters, when the mountains are covered with thick
layers of snow and the herbivores descend to relatively lower forests, with the
leopards in pursuit. They then resort to attacking livestock in villages.
Wildlife guard at the Dachigam National Park Ali Muhammad Dar explains
that leopards relish dog and monkey meat. But the big cats' love for dogs
and other domestic animals is bringing them into closer contact with human
beings. Parsa reveals, "We have reports that villagers attempt to poison
the predators but there is no proof." The wildlife department lacks
equipment to capture leopards that havestrayed from their habitats to human
dwellings. Ironically, the department owns a US $4,000 worth tranquilizer gun
but it is ineffective for the want of darts. Official negligence poses another
danger to the animals. Senior wildlife officer Muhammad Ramzan Dar recalls that
last month a leopard was electrocuted when it stepped on a low lying 11,000 volt
high-tension electricity line in Beerwah forest of central Kashmir's Budgam
district. Another wild cat died in the border town of Uri last year in similar
circumstances.
There is some heartening news, though. Stringent anti-poaching laws have decreased the number of leopards being shot at and killed. And the heavy presence of security forces and militants in the forests is a deterrent to poachers. Kashmir's leopard is known for its soft, shiny but tough fur. "The fur is different from that of other leopards because of the extreme cold conditions in Kashmir," informs Bucha. The demand for it was so great that around 500,000 people in the state were involved in the fur trade in the 1970s. But anti-poaching legislations dealt a deathblow to the trade.
Sumit Sen and I visited Corbett National Park and its environs from the 19th till the 26th of April. We were joined by Bittu Sahgal, Editor of Sanctuary Asia and by local expert Manoj Sharma for part of the time. We were there ostensibly to be a part of the tenth anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Corbett Foundation, but like naughty schoolboys played truant for most of the sessions and birded solidly from 5am till dusk. Summer madness has hit the park in a big way, with all the new arrivals going berserk with their displays and calls. It is a bit disconcerting when the pre-dominant minivet seen was the Rosy instead of the resident Scarlet or Long-tailed. Up to 20 pairs were seen in a day. Similarly another raucous visitor was the Dollarbirds, screaming and performing aerial displays, their “dollar” showing clearly. I stopped counting but we must have seen over twenty of them in our weeklong stay. The Orange–headed Ground Thrush was not to be left behind. On one journey alone from Durga Devi Gate to Lohachaur (14 Kms) we counted no less than 17 of them.
Other notable summer visitors were the Drongo-cuckoo, seen only once, but calling, ad-nauseum. The forest too resounded with the call of the Indian Pitta, along with those of the Common Hawk, Eurasian and Indian Cuckoos. The Pied Crested was seen once, as was the Spot-winged Starling. The Blue-tailed Beeeaters have arrived in great numbers. We made several trips to the grasslands or ‘Chaurs’ around Dhikala to see the Hodgson’s Bushchat, but presumably they had left for we saw none. Seeing several Bright-headed Cisticolas more than made up this loss. One afternoon, we were whisked off by the Park Director Digvijay Singh Khati on his elephant to try and see the resident tigress with three cubs in the Dhikala area. All we saw was a three-day-old stinking Chital kill, while Manoj who had peeled off saw a Barred Button-Quail at Sher-burji, which made us very jealous.
The Ghetiarao region provided a Brown Crake while the road to Kanda four White-rumped Shamas who reacted to Sumit’s whistling with great consternation. One morning we decided to go high in the hills and drove to Machure and then turned left to Chimtakhal and back. This trip, other than wonderful scenery, produced Upland Pipit, A pair of Spotted Forktails and several Red-billed Magpies.
A full trip report is being done and will soon be up on kolkatabirds.com, along with the photographs, so I will just comment briefly on some of the 236 birds seen: The vultures seem to be doing well as we had several sightings, including Red-headed, Cinereous, Egyptian (outside the park) and Himalayan Griffons. A air of White-rumped are rearing a young, near Ringora Village, next to the Amdanda Gate.
Raptors included Peregrine, Shikra, Black-shouldered Kita, Rufous-bellied Hawk Eagle, Oriental Honey Buzzard, Pallas’s, Lesser Fish Eagle, several rested Serpent, Changeable and Mountain Hawk Eagles. Owls were a bit thin, with only the Brown Fish and the Jungle Owlet seen. A Collared Owlet was heard on the first day. The Savanna and the Large-tailed Nightjars were common. All the five Parakeets were seen, as were the five Barbets available in the park. Kingfishers included the Crested and the Pied, The Common and the White-throated, but the Stork-billed was conspicuous by its absence. Three Great Hornbill, several Oriental Pied (including a single flock of over forty in the Bijrani area) and the Grey Hornbills. Woodpeckers are obviously doing well and our sightings included the Wryneck, Grey-headed, Fulvous-breasted, Brown-fronted, Rufous, Lesser Yellownape, Streak-throated, Grey-capped Pygmy and the Black-rumped, Himalayan and Greater Flamebacks. Galliformes included hundreds of Indian Peafowl, Red Junglefowls, several Khaleej and three Common Quails. Other highlights included, Sulphur-bellied Warbler, Ashy and Black Bulbuls, White-rumped Needletail, Lesser Coucal, Pintailed Green Pigeon, Darter, Black-chinned Yuhina, Black and Black-necked Storks, Small Pratincole, and Black-naped Monarch.
On our last game drive, we decided to go down to Lohachaur in the “Buffer area”, where we were distracted by loud bird-calls emanating from deep in the Sal forest. To our delight eleven Great Slaty Woodpeckers flew across us like small avian jet bombers. You should have seen Sumit’s face at the sight of these huge and rare woodpeckers zooming across. As a bird photographer, his disappointment at not being able to get a single picture of this seldom photographed bird knew no bounds, but just as he was cursing his luck, two Long-tailed Broadbills literally dropped in front of us giving him full opportunity to vent his earlier frustration. We moved on a mile or so when a huge tusker, who refused to give way, blocked our path. Prudently we decided to turn back and this proved to be fortuitous as we ran into the same flock of the Great Slaty Woodpeckers who had given us so much joy. This time Sumit was able to get some pictures, including five of them in one frame. This was one of my most brilliant birding moments in a misspent life.
We would like to thank Sh. Digvijay Singh Khatti, Mohit Agarwal, Dilip Khatau, Manoj Sharma, Ritesh Suri, and Meenakshi Pande for their hospitality. Yogambar Singh Bist for being such a good birding guide and Ahmed for his brilliant driving in the forest. Overall the birding was so good that when a pregnant tigress walked within 15 feet of us or when a leopard bounded out behind a Sal tree near Durga Devi gate or we were mock-charged by a tusker in ‘musth’, it seemed almost incidental.
A Twinsburg, Ohio toy company is helping to locate a rare bird in India. The bird, a Jerdon's courser, inhabits scrub forests in the rocky, rolling foothills of southern India. Little is known about this elusive, nocturnal bird, whose scientific name is Rhinoptilus bitorquatus. Looking at a photo of the bird, Harvey Webster, director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's Wildlife Resources Center, thought it looked somewhat like a giant plover. The bird's diet is termites primarily, a fact that was discovered through analysis of its droppings. The Jerdon's courser was last seen in 2001 and was believed to be extinct. But Panchepakesan Jeganathan, a Bombay Natural History Society researcher, and Simon Wotton, a scientist from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at Cambridge University, identified the bird. They are the only people ever able to photograph it and record its call.
And it is the call - two identical raucous notes, with a soft, slurred sound in the middle - that drew in the toy company. Rhys Green, a scientist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, was browsing in the Royal Botanic Gardens gift shop. He saw several realistic-looking plush toy birds manufactured by K&M International of Twinsburg. When squeezed, each toy emits the authentic call of its species, thanks to microchip technology, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in the United States and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Europe, which provided the original recordings. Green was thinking about the Jerdon's courser, and he had an idea. He contacted K&M and asked the company to reproduce the Jerdon's courser's call on a sound box. The recordings would be given to rangers, conservationists and ornithologists in the field in southern India to help them recognize the call and perhaps lure the nocturnal bird out of hiding. "We felt it was an honor that we were asked to do this," said Manjit Dhillon, marketing director of K&M.
A company team spent about four months removing distortion from the original recording and transferring it to microchips, which were inserted into sound boxes. K&M shipped 1,000 sound boxes to the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds in January, and from there they were forwarded to India. A number of researchers, including the Bombay Natural History Society, are interested in identifying the Jerdon's courser's seasonal habits, the current population and distribution.
WILDLIFE PROTECTION SOCIETY OF INDIA (WPSI) are seeking a Project Officer who can assist the enforcement authorities to control poaching and illegal wildlife trade in the Nilgiri Biosphere area including work with other NGOs in conservation of wildlife and forest management issues.
Qualifications: Candidate should be a graduate with knowledge of the Nilgiri Biosphere and an interest in wildlife conservation. Preference will be given to a candidate who belongs to the area.
The candidate must be speak at least two of the following local languages: Malayalam, Tamil or Kannada. Working knowledge of English is essential. The post would be suitable for a male applicant in the age group of 20-35.
The selected persons can work from his home and will be provided travel allowance, Provident Fund, Insurance and other benefits. Salary to be negotiated.
| Drinking Water Ship is Sinking in Jharkhand and West Bengal |
Ranchi is racing towards becoming unplanned concrete jungle in the name of modern township , here, large scale concrete structures have been raised without bothering about the availability of fresh drinking water. The human density has increased to such high level that human toilet waste has started mixing up with the ground water and resulted in increasing the pollution to an alarming level. The authorities are required to feel the urgency to put up sewage line system in the city before it is too late. The water guards used in Ranchi and Jamshedpur are failing to generate drinking water rather they are producing demineralised water which is positive health hazard.It may also harm development process of children.It is amazing that such guard are stopping minerals which are essential for human health as per guidelines of World Health Organisation. It is an alarming situation and is set to endanger the health of younger generation.
The team of Engineers and scientists have been able to develop one portable instrument through which high current is passed through water, which separates minerals, impurities and biomass. All these elements these are visible by naked eyes. The large number of water samples passed through water guards had been collected by Engineers, Doctors and Journalists. The test results produced horrible results and non of the sample could produce the satisfactory result. The initial tests indicate that water samples are likely to contain nitrates, fluorides, heavy metals, coli form and bacteria. These are potential threat to human health. These substances may cause dreaded diseases like stone, gas, piles, diabetes, blood pressure, fatness, urine related diseases, acidity, gastric and stomach ailments. At the moment the water pollution is at lower levels and pollution level is likely to go up with the withdrawal of monsoon.
These samples should be subjected to further tests by standard laboratories for proper analysis. The Under Ground Water Authority of India is required to conduct their inspection as people of Ranchi are drinking under ground water. The authority has already declared that underground water in and around Delhi is unfit for drinking. The packaged drinking water should not be bottled in such areas as they are unlikely to meet the standards of Bureau of Indian Standards, however, Govt. of India is already considering to lower the standards, however, current laws are also inconsistent and do not guarantee that people will always be getting pure drinking water. As per current laws packaged drinking water and natural mineral water are different.
As per initial reports Jharkhand underground waters are likely to contain compounds like bacteria, fecal contaminants, asbestos fibers, nitrates and fluorides in excess of permissible limits. The traces of minerals have also been found in unfiltered water samples and these were not subjected to water guards.These are good for human health.
The pesticides have been used in such massive
doses that instead of insects, human beings have began to die. These have
already entered in bottled colas and packaged drinking water. It suggests that
further use of pesticides
Is prohibitive to kill insects, specially, in the areas where under ground water
is used for drinking. The fish harvesting is the ideal way to control mosquitoes
and there is no other solution in sight. The fishing is required to be banned as
it saves water from pollution and the fact has already been recognized by United
Nations.
Jharkhand still has forests left and only forests are capable of harvesting rain water in real sense. The development of forests on war footing will sense for the development of the state. The mining operations should not reduce the forests cover of Jharkhand. The destruction of forests will make mockery of the economic projections and it should not be allowed for personal gains. The rock cutting in the state should not be allowed and in several states including Delhi it has been banned by court orders. The wastage of water has to be prevented by taking such action.
The state should think of lowering cement construction in the cities. It was established at the World Conference of Environmentalists held in Finland that production of cement, transportation of cement and construction by cement
Causes lot of pollution. It has been established that pollution is passed on to the water. Its traces are also present in underground water.
The fertilizer plant in Sindri have been
releasing arsenic in the river which have killed fish stock in the river on
large scale. The arsenic has been passed on to vegetables also and it is
responsible for increasing cancer cases in Jharkhand and West Bengal.
The author feels that the Engineers in the state are in
position to develop domestic water purifiers at a affordable prices, however,
our old age methods of purification of drinking water are likely to be more
suitable for Jharkand. The purifiers should be designed and developed in such a
manner that minerals are not lost in the process. These are very important for
human beings as per the findings of World Health Organisation.
The deadline for abstracts of contributions to Symposia S1, S2, S3, S4 and S6 is 31 May 2004.
The deadline for abstracts for Symposia S5 and S7 and all Workshops is 31 December 2004.
Details of the Scientific Programme, where to send abstracts,
how to register, accomodation, etc. are available http://iahs.info and in IAHS
Newsletters 79 & 80
Ashish Kothari
By any standards, India's environment and environment-dependent people are in
bad shape. Millions of people continue to die due to water and air pollution,
water shortages have become more acute than ever before, forest quality and
wildlife are decreasing, land degradation has not been halted, and thousands of
tribals and other poor people get displaced every year. By conservative
estimates, such damage costs the economy thousands of crores of rupees,
annually, due to lost productivity, increased health care, expenditure on
anti-drought and anti-pollution measures, and so on.
Will the 2004 general elections signal a change in this scenario? Do the visions of the two major contending parties and their allies, as reflected in their election manifestos, promise anything different?
The key planks on which BJP, Congress, and allied parties are fighting the elections are development, livelihoods, employment. All these issues are intricately tied to the fate of India's immense natural resources..its water, land, and biodiversity (including forests and seas). So one would have thought that with over half a century of hindsight, these parties would have something bold to offer on how to move towards human development and welfare that is based on sustaining, not destroying, these natural resources. Unfortunately, even an archaeological foray into the election manifestos reveals only a few nuggets of such a vision, and these two drowned in a sea of conventional, long-ago discredited 'development'-speak.
Both the NDA and the Congress Manifestos start with recounting their achievements (apart from the usual "bashing-of-the-other party" lines). Shockingly, neither has anything to say about safeguarding India's environment, or about taking development onto a more sustainable path, in their past work. Perhaps not so shocking, since in reality neither party has had the courage or vision to try for this during its tenure. Both parties in fact claim credit for taking India into the modern and global economy, and a phase of high-percentage growth. The fact that a sole focus on 'taking India into the 21st century" has played havoc with the natural environment, and consequently with the lives of a majority of India's population that depends directly on the health of the natural environment, seems to escape the analysis of past achievements. Indeed, most striking is that in both the NDA and the Congress Manifestos, the primary prescription for the next five years is based on same old conventional indicators of 'development' that are increasingly getting discredited across the world: percentage growth rate of the economy, industrial growth, creation of massive infrastructure, increase in agricultural and industrial exports, and so on. There is not one mention of 'sustainable development', despite over a decade of global and national dialogue on this subject, and despite India itself having a 'sustainable development and conservation' policy (long-forgotten!). Neither set of parties talks of the urgent need for a comprehensive land use plan, in which environmentally critical areas (water sources, biodiversity-rich areas, agriculturally important regions, marine breeding grounds, and so on) are kept safely away from destructive mining, dams, urbanisation, and industries.
The NDA and Congress visions of 'employment' miss out on what could possibly be the single biggest source of livelihood for the rural poor: the regeneration of the over 150 million hectares of degraded lands and waterbodies that have spread across the country like a cancer. The NDA mentions "wastelands development" and "social forestry" in passing, but gives no indication of the massive effort needed to optimise this dual opportunity of reversing environmental damage while generating livelihoods for several millions poor people. The Congress Manifesto makes no such connection at all, though it was during its own term that the Planning Commission had advocated such an approach!
The BJP in its "Vision Document 2004", talks of "environmental protection" being one of the "underpinnings" of its economic vision. The NDA Manifesto however seems to lose sight of this. Mega-projects with potentially disastrous ecological consequences are promised, including the harebrained River Linking project, single-window clearances for mining (supposedly in an "environmentally sustainable manner"), massive thermal power expansion, single-point clearance for biotechnology projects within 60 days (despite the knowledge that complex impact assessments are needed to ensure the safety of such technologies), and so on. A major expansion of tourism is advocated, with no mention of ecological and cultural sensitivity.indeed, the NDA promises relaxation of the Coastal Regulation Zone provisions that have helped to protect India's coasts from destructive development! It even promises environmental clearance for all projects within 45 days, which will pave the way for even shorter shrift being paid to the ecological impacts of development projects. The Congress manifesto does not even go into such issues; indeed, unlike the NDA, it does not even have a section on environmental protection! Not that the NDA section is much to crow about; it is a measly 10 lines in a 25-page document, and even these few lines reveal a rather superficial, glossy understanding of the environment.
Agriculture is a key test case for whether environmental sustainability means anything to these parties. To its credit the NDA mentions 'organic farming', but this more in passing than as a central thrust; and the Congress does not even mention it. Both focus heavily on commercialising agriculture, giving agro-processing priority, and boosting agro-based exports. For fisheries, exploitation of the deep seas and spread of trawler technologies is promised. Small farmers (especially in dryland areas containing the majority of such farmers) and traditional fisherfolk in India need facilitation to develop forms of production that are self-reliant, organic, biologically diverse, and based on traditional knowledge. The two Manifestos promise agricultural and fisheries development that will primarily benefit the richer sections of these societies, and provide a greater choice to urban consumers within and outside India.but do little to benefit the small producers that have been the backbone of the primary sector so far. Shockingly, they do not even promise a phasing out of the deadly chemicals used in agriculture and health programmes, that are now known to lace drinking water, vegetables, fruits, and even soft drinks.
The issue of water, of course, cannot be evaded. Both Manifestos talk about water harvesting by communities, but neither mentions that this needs to be the single most important thrust in the future. The NDA in the same breath promises the River Linking project, ignoring the history of small-scale projects being consistently displaced in budgets and political attention, by such mega-projects. And of course it forgets to mention that its National Water Policy does not provide communities the control and wherewithal to make decentralised water harvesting a nation-wide reality.
The BJP Vision document identifies the 'conspicuous consumption" as being against India's cultural ethos. Yet the rampaging over-consumption of the country's rich and elite, seem not to be a concern in either of the Manifestos. No steps are promised for keeping luxury consumption (and the resulting generation of mountains of waste) under check.
The treatment of north-east India by the two manifestos is symbolic of their bankruptcy of vision. Both promise the usual conventional modes of development to a region which actually cries out for a very different vision: one based on the conservation and sustainable use of its immensely rich biological resources and cultural traditions. Central governments since Independence have been pouring money and armed forces into the north-east, with tragic consequences.and now they are focusing on more of the same medicine, including big dams, industries, commercial agriculture, and the like.
The one count on which both sets of parties score, is the promise of land or resource rights over forests to tribals. The section on tribals is the only place where the Congress notes the need to balance economic development with ecological sustainability. The BJP Vision note goes as far as to say that "tribals are the best protectors of our depleting forest and wildlife resources". Both Manifestos also promise much greater political and financial empowerment of local village bodies. But such promises have been made before only to be broken..both parties have had time since the 1993 constitutional amendment providing powers to panchayats and gram sabhas, to actually carry out such devolution, but both have failed. These and other parties are far too dependent on power obtained through centralised decision-making structures, to take the bold steps needed to implement true village-level democracy. Nevertheless this could be one sign of hope in a rather bleak political scenario for the environment.
There are of course a few other signs of hope, outside of the Manifestos and promises of the big parties. A number of independent candidates in several constituencies, have raised basic issues of water, food security, land regeneration, forests and forest-based rights, and so on. Communities in some areas have threatened to boycott the elections if issues of water, pollution, and so on are not tackled. These remain, however, scattered and small. If the key party manifestos are any indication, the environmental movement in India, despite impressive growth, has remained politically insignificant.
There is good news for wildlife conservation in South Asia with a large new
14,000 sq km conservation area being formed on the India-Myanmar border.
Many on this list may already be aware of the proposed expansion of Myanmar's
Hukawng Valley Wildlife sanctuary, which will triple the size of the sanctuary
on the Myanmar side to around 12,500 sq km. The expanded park boundary will
also run along the India-Myanmar international border south of Namdapha and
along the Patkai range in south eastern Arunachal Pradesh. The combined protected
/ conservation area from both sides will total around 14,000 sq km. This is
a welcome development for both countries and wildlife lovers as it can open
up cross-border conservation initiatives. Many of you will recall Hukawng Valley
also being home to several species of flora and fauna including tiger, elephant,
gaur, dhole, clouded leopard, various primates, birds and also the recently
discovered leaf deer etc. Once the Hukawng Valley park is enlarged it will also
become the world's largest tiger reserve.
If anyone in NE India or elsewhere has further information on this, please post.
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2004 07:45:46 PM
]
MANGALORE: The Karnataka State Forest Department has recently taken up several
habitat manipulation activities in Kudremukh National Park (KNP) harmful to
the natural ecosystem of the rainforests. The forest department is forming a
series of bunds across the natural streams in KNP, spending lakhs of rupees
of central funds in the guise of soil and water conservation project. Another
reason being given by the forest departtment for the works is employment generation!
It is estimated that more than 12,000 mts of bunds are being constructed at
various locations in the Park across most of the fresh water streams in KNP.
These bunds are additional to the hundreds of bunds already constructed during
the earlier years. Total of 50,000 bunds and 20 large check dams were formed
upto the year 1999 as per the first management plan for KNP, several large trees
were submerged and killed due to water logging around these check dams (see
pic).
Conservationists G N Ashokavardhana from Arohana and Dr Krishnamohan Prabhu
from Western Ghats Forum for Conservation of Natural Ecosystem (WG FORCE), Moodbidri,
say that applying concepts of water conservation measures which were primarily
evolved for dry states like Rajasthan in the rainforests of the Western Ghats
were hundreds of perennial streams originate is completely unscientific. They
also point out that the forest department is also planting thousands of saplings
on the natural grassland vegetation of the Park altering the natural forest
composition of the Park. The extensive acacia plantations made earlier by the
department is now acknowledged by everyone that it has negative effects on natural
ecosystems.
The Park is seen as a living laboratory for biologists and nature lovers. The
recent plantation activities by the department is seen as an attempt to disrupt
the natural evolution process of these sensitive ecosystems. Ecologists and
conservationists have consistently appealed to the forest department that such
habitat manipulation activities are completely unscientific, unwarranted and
a waste of public money.
At a time when there is severe shortage of funds for protection activity and
lower level field staff welfare, diverting money into such unnecessary habitat
manipulation activities is more often damaging to wildlife rather than improving
it. They have appealed to the government to stop such non scientific habitat
manipulation practices from wildlife reserves and focus on protection, wildlife
habitat consolidation and wildlife corridor recovery programs to conserve our
endangered natural ecosystems for posterity. Conservator of Forests R Sugara
told The Times of India that the works were being carried out as per the centrally
sanctioned development project. He did not offer any convincing reply regarding
the need for such measures in KNP, but added that it was only to a limited extent.
Whether state board for Wildlife had given the sanction, Sugara claimed the
management project had been approved by the state Chief widlife warden.
Pointing out at the Naxalite problem which had surfaced reently, he said this
would also generate employment and minimise intrusion of `outsiders' into the
park. When asked whether the park should be used as employment generation tool,
he said the priority is conservation and the works will generate employment
and also act as fire retardants (the conservation measures).
C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa,
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004 India
Tel: + 91 20 25654239 / 25675450 Fax: 25654239
Email: pankajs@vsnl.com