India is considered a world leader in conservation. We have pulled the Great Indian rhino and the Asiatic lion from almost certain extinction. We are the committed custodians of the tiger. Yet, we remain locked in the ‘development versus environment’ debate
“So, are we writing the epilogue of India’s wildlife IJ” It’s a question I was asked at a talk on the National Wildlife Week, celebrated every year in the first week of October. Given the gloom and doom scenario, and the dismal news from the world of wildlife pouring in, it’s a valid fear, and one that I will attempt to answer through this column.
First the good news: India has an unparalleled wildlife conservation history. Globally, large mammals, particularly predators, have taken the worst beating, declining with the first impacts of humans on their habitats. India continues to harbour large predators like the snow leopard, common leopard, clouded leopard, wolf, wild dogs and, of course, the tiger. India is home to more than 50 per cent wild tigers and also the Asiatic elephant. It’s the repository of a fair number of species once almost on the brink, notably the Great Indian rhinoceros, Asiatic lion, Asiatic wild ass and lion-tailed macaque. We have gaur, the largest wild bovines, wild buffalo, at least three species of bear, three species of large crocodilians.
The only mega fauna we have tragically lost in the last century has been the cheetah. This, given our country’s demographics at over 1.2 billion and the fact we are the second-most populated country in the world, is remarkable, and a credit to us. It’s especially so when we view it in context of the developed Western world, which has all but wiped off its predators. For example, wolves, bears and lynx once roamed the UK as top predators. They have all been eradicated.
let’s focus on India’s national animal and Project Tiger, the biggest conservation initiative of its time. There are detractors, and I have been a severe critic as well, given the fortunes and otherwise of the tiger in the turbulent four decades since the project’s inception. We saw the poaching carnage of the 1990s, the mockery of inflated numbers and misplaced complacency, the shame of tigers going extinct in Sariska and Panna, the persisting threats to tiger habitat and the intensifying human-tiger conflict. Tragically, the killing continues, and has, in fact, peaked in the past two years.
Yet, there is little doubt that the project has served its purpose. Even if, as it is pointed out, we have about the same number of tigers we started at the inception of the project in 1973 — if we can make that comparison at all given different estimation methods. It must be pointed out that the pressures on the tiger and its habitat have increased exponentially in these four decades. That tiger habitats remain, that tiger populations have stabilised (although still very vulnerable) and that some reserves — one example being Nagarahole — saw a resurgence of tigers, thanks to the protectionist legal and policy framework provided in the 1970s, reinforce this fact.
Significantly, with protection, the forests under the umbrella of Project Tiger have thrived. This, despite a booming human population and the consequent pressure on resources, expanding agriculture, the intensive and extensive demands for infrastructural and industrial growth, sagging political will and a frayed sincerity of purpose.
Despite the cheery note, all is not rosy. When faced with multitude of crises and gravity of threats that continue to plague the tiger and tiger habitats — using them, as one often does, as a metaphor for all of India’s biodiversity — it is hard to retain hope, especially in a climate with little support to wildlife. In India’s aspiring economy and divided polity, the legal environment framework that is the basis of conservation, is being viewed as a ‘hurdle’.
This was elucidated by none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who decreed green laws as the “new licence raj”, stating that “saving the environment cannot be at the cost of development.” That this perception is faulty and not based on fact, has been well explained in my earlier columns. Suffice it to say that we have given away vast chunks of even pristine forests and wildlife habitats for mining, power projects etc, even as the current capacities lie unutilised and far-exceeding the targets of the current plan.
Such wilful destruction, and flawed planning, fail to weigh the consequences of long-term sustainability, of the health of the people, and its economy. The policy lacks the vision that it is nature — free flowing rivers, forests, wetlands, grasslands — that provide us ecosystem services that sustain us.
Another key concern is that some of our lesser known mega fauna is on the brink of extinction.I have highlighted repeatedly the plight of the Great Indian Bustard, of which only about a 100 survive in the wild. Almost as endangered are other members of the bustard family — the Bengal florican, and the lesser florican, both down to mere hundreds — and creatures of the fast vanishing grasslands. No less imperiled is the hangul, the magnificent barasingha and the only sub-species of the red deer in India. Fewer than 200 remain, concentrated in Dachigam National Park in Srinagar. A small portion of their habitat was denotified to make way for a golf course and luxury hotels. Currently, Dachigam is overrun by nomadic shepherds and their livestock. There is a state-owned sheep breeding park within the premises of the national park, and although there is a Cabinet decision to move the farm out, eight years on, the farm continues to occupy prime meadows. In fact, there is a campaign to declare the area it occupies as non-forestland.
We are whittling away the last remaining habitats of even our critically-endangered species. The gharial is another such ill-fated species. Only about 200 breeding adults of this longest and the most ancient of crocodilians remain. The Hirakud dam on the Mahanadi — the gharial’s southernmost range — sealed their fate in that river, which today may at best have about five. Their current stronghold, the Chambal river, is dammed, with no less than 150 projects operating in its basin with an equal number in the pipeline.
There are other species that stare extinction in the face: Jerdon’s courser, wild buffalo, sangai or Manipuri dancing deer, the once ubiquitous vultures to name just a few. While most of the species are covered under a ‘Species Recovery Programme’ of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, the programme suffers from an acute lack of funds and is managed by a poorly-staffed wildlife department and is, therefore, unable to deliver the focus such a programme demands. What is also missing is the will of steel, and the sense of urgency of the gravity of the situation, both on part of the State and Union Governments required to pull back these species from the brink.
Unless we deem their last remaining habitats sacrosanct, these species are doomed forever. The tiger survived not just because we devoted a project and infused it with funds, but because it had a strong foundation, with a handpicked, committed team and backed by strong political will and increasing public support.
India is considered a world leader in conservation — we have pulled the Great Indian rhino and the Asiatic lion from almost certain extinction. We are the committed custodians of the tiger. Then why such apathyIJ Are we willing to lose forever a precious part of our natural heritageIJ I think not. Till the last tiger remains, there is hope.
(The columnist is senior consultant, WCS India, and founder-director of ‘Bagh’. She is a former member of the National Board for Wildlife)