The death of environmentalist and mimic of various animals and birds Ram Babu ‘Junglee’ has exposed the Government’s indifferent attitude towards genuine and skilled nature lovers in Uttarakhand. He died on Wednesday due to a lung ailment he had been suffering from for some years now.
An active advocate of the environment and wildlife, he had planted many trees and had won many admirers with his skills but the government neither provided him financial assistance for his treatment nor capitalised on his skills for linking youngsters with environmental conservation.
Hailing from a village in Pauri district and aged about 50 years, Ram Babu ‘Junglee’ had remained a bachelor to be able to pursue environmental conservation. He fell ill on Tuesday night at Haridwar and breathed his last on Wednesday.
He had impressed many in Uttarakhand and beyond with his skills but ironically, he struggled to get recognition and assistance from the Government in his own State. last year, he had written a letter to the President of India eliciting focus on indiscriminate tree felling for ‘development works’ without the necessary compensatory afforestation, the dwindling population of the State bird Monal pheasant and unscientific detonations carried out for road construction among other environmental issues.
A letter from the President’s secretariat had asked the State chief secretary to inform him about measures taken on these issues. Though the Himachal Pradesh principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) had responded to Babu’s queries on Monal protection, the authorities in Uttarakhand had ignored him.
Babu feared that the population of the State bird had dwindled to about 3000 from more than 10,000. He used to mimic the call of the bird and count the birds which responded though his methods were not appreciated by officials.
Frustrated, he had also climbed atop water tanks twice- once at the Doon Hospital while undergoing treatment to elicit focus on this issue. He often lamented, “I have the skills and dedication but I am being ignored by the authorities while NGOs that do little work face no dearth of funds.”
In 2012, on the initiative of the Dehradun Mayor Vinod Chamoli, the then Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna had announced that the State government would provide `80,000 for his medical expenses but the assistance was not provided, Babu had lamented. Recently, he had strongly objected to the State government announcing a reward for Kamla Devi of Rudraprayag district for killing a leopard that had attacked her.
He had said that while the government is implementing various schemes for wildlife protection, rewarding a person for killing a leopard reeked of double standards. “I am disappointed by the human interference in environment and the killing of wildlife. The inefficiency of the Forest Department is responsible for the human-wildlife conflict,” he had said then.