Perhaps the most important conservation task is to protect all the remaining natural forests. At places where these have been degraded badly, conducive conditions for regeneration should be created so that forests can be regenerated in forms very similar to natural forests. In forests where water sources have been getting depleted due to a complex of factors, water and moisture conservation work should be taken up to maintain the green cover and ensure that wild life is not deprived of its most basic need of water, as well as to reduce the fast spread of wild fires. Whether inside or outside forests, attempts should be to minimize axing of green trees, ensuring that axing is taken up only when unavoidable and then also it is minimized, and compensatory adequate afforestation is taken up properly and monitored carefully. In projects involving some unavoidable deforestation, the reforestation work should get as much importance as the project itself, with budget, responsibility and details worked out well in advance.
In some places where forest species mix has already been tampered with to such an extent that the natural forest is more or less gone, attempts should be made to focus on bringing back those depleted species which are gone. In many Himalayan forest areas and villages, planting of more broad leaf species like the oak will contribute to restore the mixed species as well as to improve soil and water conservation significantly.
Strong steps should be taken to discourage poaching and trafficking/smuggling of animals/birds insects and body parts.
Beyond forest areas, villages should emphasize eco-friendly agricultural practices which avoid poisonous agro-chemicals, particularly pesticides. Rural as well as urban areas should avoid such hazardous chemicals, at the same time giving more priority to increasing green cover bases on mixed local tree species, giving special care to protection of natural pollinators.
Similarly conservation of grasslands, water-bodies, wetlands, floodplains and other important habitats will also be very helpful. Significant reduction of water pollution is of course important, as also taking care to ensure that construction projects on rivers and water-bodies do not endanger fish and other aquatic life.
In all these efforts local people including adivasis, other villagers living in or near forests, boatmen, fishers etc. should be involved closely, to obtain their best contributions based on their very useful local and traditional knowledge. In the process their livelihoods should be enhanced and not diminished, and displacement should be avoided. To the extent that under the pressure of compelling circumstances some of their current livelihoods pose any serious threat to environment, these can be replaced by livelihoods based on conservation efforts, and the overall result should be to result in the enhancement and not diminution of sustainable livelihoods.
To encourage and advance this in a balanced way at the national level requires a proper budget as well as much better sensitization to a people-based conservation model.
The reality of conservation effort in India is very different from this, and millions of people have been either displaced by the conservation efforts or feel victimized by it. What is described as success in official documents has often involved an increase of distress among people. Imbalances in species, in part related to faulty conservation practices, have led to such frequent and extensive harm of cultivated fields by animals that ruin of farming and even abandonment of their basic livelihood has been the result for an increasing number of farmers.
On top of this elite tourism centered activities and expensive projects of at best uncertain benefits have led to neglect of the most basic conservation tasks. Some time back when a young tiger was re-located from Pench to Panna, after some days the animal started moving homeward. As reported in the Indian Express ( September 19, 2022), “With four elephants and 70 teams of government officials and volunteers behind him, the tiger walked 440 km. in 30 days toward Pench through Chattarpur, Sagar and Damoh districts, before it was finally intercepted and brought back to Panna.”
Why was such an expensive exercise continued for so long when the basic facts of a yearning for walking homewards helped by a strong sense of direction are known to be common to several animals, big and small? We do not know, except to say that to satisfy the whims of decision makers, often real priorities and resource constraints are forgotten all too easily.
The chances of absurdities, mistakes and projects far removed from reality will decrease considerably if much better use of valuable local and traditional knowledge and wisdom of communities is made and they are involved in conservation and protection efforts.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071.
