On saving a culture of co-existence between humans and wildlife
The people who share space and resources with wildlife are among the poorest and most disempowered in our country. Conservation efforts today are focused almost entirely on securing wildlife habitats and policing forest boundaries, but they ignore the costs the mere presence of wildlife places on human communities nearby. If we do nothing to reduce the burdens conservation places on them, or at least to share in their costs, we will only ensure that the cultural space they make for wildlife is lost. And that loss is bound to leave us immeasurably poorer, both ecologically and culturally.
That final para from an essay in the Times of India simply states an inescapable conclusion from the history of wildlife conservation in India; a conclusion that nevertheless continues to evade many a conservation biologist in the country (even discounting the old-school wildlifers), not to mention bureaucrats and politicians who actually have the power to implement conservation policies.
Do read the entire essay, penned by my good friends MD Madhusudan and Pavithra Sankaran of the Nature Conservation Foundation, a conservation research NGO that the former founded while in graduate school over a decade ago, and that is now one of the leading conservation research organizations in the tropics.
And if you do visit the NCF site, or know people there, you might also join me in congratulating another NCF scientist, Aparajita Datta, who has just been recognized by National Geographic as one of the Emerging Explorers of 2010! She too plays an important part in understanding, saving, and creating cultures of coexistence in difficult parts of the country.
I don't know what sort of reaction this article has generated among the average reader back in India - but just knowing that there is a vibrant group of young biologists building a new culture of human-nature coexistence (reconciliation ecology, if you will) in India gives me hope that not all is lost. That is, if people pause enough to listen to them and absorb the message.
2 comments:
Did go and read the article quoted. One feels for the farmer. Aren't there similar issues in Africa?
Was recently talking with a conservation manager at Midewan National Tallgrass Prairie who was trying to figure out how to put a culvert through a beaver dam so a farmer's field and a road wouldn't be flooded. Trivial compared to the story from India, but still.
Adrian - I think these kinds of problems are universal, not only in India and Africa where the problems may be more acute, but even in developed countries like the US where economic and ecological injustices often go hand in hand. Most of the famous National Parks in this country were established after native populations had been wiped out from those places - so we don't see the same level of conflict now!
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your experience, btw - I'm glad to have found your blog this way.
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