300,000 Dead Turtles, 3 Decades Of Carnage

Goodwill. Funds. Laws. Nothing helps Odisha stop trawlers from ravaging the shore waters

Tehelka, 28 Feb, 2013

Dead turtles aren’t a new story. Every breeding season, from November to May, the media reports scores of dead Olive Ridleys scattered along the eastern coast, particularly at the mass nesting sites of Odisha. But what makes this carnage a vulgar certainty year after year is a damning story that needs to be told.

In 1983, then director of Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute EG Silas had warned that “unless urgent action is taken in regulating or adopting new modifications in fishing gear, the nest beaches along the Odisha coast may turn to be the largest graveyard of Olive Ridleys in the world.” Three decades on, the grim prediction is still playing out.

By the early 1980s, commercial harvesting of turtle eggs and turtles for meat was on the wane. Prior to Independence, local landlords in Odisha collected an anda-kar (tax) from turtle egg hunters. Between 1947 and 1975, the state issued permits for egg harvesting. Mechanised fishing during the ’70s caused as many of as 50,000 turtles to end up at Kolkata’s fish markets every season. Following the enactment of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and subsequent interventions by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi who engaged the Coast Guard for turtle protection, the trade stopped by the mid-1980s.

By then, turtles were facing a new danger — mechanised trawling. Since they need to surface every 30 minutes to breathe, getting stuck in nets that trawled underwater meant certain death. But long before conservation rules were framed for the species that enjoys, on paper, the maximum protection accorded under Schedule I of the Wildlife Act, help came from unexpected quarters.

Ridleys congregate in large numbers for mating close to the shoreline, in the same waters where artisanal fishermen operate. In 1982, the state enacted the Orissa Marine Fisheries Regulation Act (OMFRA) to protect the livelihood of artisanal fishermen by prohibiting trawlers from operating within 5 km of the coastline. The Ridleys could well have been saved from trawler nets if only the restriction had been implemented.

Conservationists fighting a losing battle against the trawlers should have found a natural ally in the artisanal fishermen. Instead, they antagonised these communities by trying to deny them access to nesting beaches and impose restrictions on artisanal fishing. Being outsiders, these migrant fishermen from Bangladesh and Andhra Pradesh had little clout to take on the powerful Odiya trawling lobby. Their internal division on Bengali-Andhraite line didn’t help either. By the time conservationists realised the importance of uniting them against trawling, the task had become complicated. Loss of livelihood had already forced many of the fishermen to take up jobs as deckhands with the very trawlers that evicted them from the waters.

Since the 5-km embargo stipulated in OMFRA remained only on paper, nobody expected fresh regulations, issued in 1997, to stop all mechanised fishing within 20 km of the three mass nesting areas of Gahirmatha coast, Devi River mouth and Rushikulya beach, to have any impact. They did not. Then, OMFRA was amended again in 2003, this time to make Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) mandatory for all trawlers operating in Odisha. This flap-door device is used internationally to allow turtles and dolphins that accidentally enter the net to escape unharmed. But with turtles, around 10 percent of the fish catch also escapes. So, in spite of free distribution of hundreds of TEDs, not one is in use anywhere on the Odisha coast.

Forcing trawlers and other mechanised boats to use TEDs and stay away from waters legally out of bounds for them requires patrolling infrastructure. The Coast Guard cannot operate in shallow waters very close to the shoreline and the fisheries and forest departments that are supposed to do the patrolling do not have any speedboats. During 1998-2003, a few NGOs supported the forest department with patrolling boats and fuel. But after a few altercations between mechanised fishers and forest guards that cost a few lives on both sides, patrolling was effectively given up.

In 2003 and ’04, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court pointed out that Rs 1 crore obtained from IndianOil for turtle protection was lying unutilised for four years and another Rs 1 crore was given by the agriculture ministry to the fisheries department to buy fast patrol boats. The CEC instructed the state to procure two fast boats for each of the three turtle-nesting areas. Nine years later, no boat is in sight. Other recommendations of the CEC included removal of casuarina plantations and installation of turtle-friendly lighting at all commercial and residential units near the three mass nesting sites.

After a cyclone in 1971, on the advice of Swedish experts, casuarina plants were imported from Australia as a natural storm barrier. But the weak trees gave way like matchsticks when subsequent cyclones, particularly the mighty one in 1999, hit Odisha. Yet, the forest department continued planting the trees, says National Board for Wildlife member Biswajit Mohanty. On most beaches, Ridleys now find little open sand to dig up when they climb beyond the high tideline to lay eggs. While the CEC’s order for removal of these useless plantations is gathering dust, boulders are now being dumped indiscriminately on beaches as storm barriers; burying some of the world’s best nesting sites.

When Ridley hatchlings emerge from the eggs, they are biologically tuned to move towards the glowing night sea horizon. Artificial lights distract the hatchlings from the sea and to eventual death. At times, artificial beach lights even confuse adult females that return without laying eggs. The CEC instructed the state to identify all such light sources near mass nesting sites and take corrective steps. Nothing has moved yet.

Meanwhile, the Dhamra port came up within 15 km of Gahirmatha in spite of objections from the CEC. After the Bombay Natural History Society refused to be part of a mitigation plan in 2005 because the project proponents did not agree to suspend work pending the study, the International Union for Conservation of Nature partnered with the Dhamra Port Company Limited without even consulting key members of its own Marine Turtle Specialist Group, such as Kartik Shanker and Romulus Whitaker, on the project.

Like pandas or tigers, turtles easily make for an emotive cause. The Ridleys of Odisha have garnered huge attention and funds at home and abroad. There has been no dearth of laws, or even indigenous technology innovations such as the TED priced at only Rs 2,000, developed by the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology. And yet, we lose 10-30,000 Ridleys every year in the fishing nets that are not meant to capture them.

Do we blame the trawler owners who refuse to spare a 5-km-ring of fishing waters or lose 10 percent of their catch to TEDs? Do we hold the state responsible for forfeiting the responsibility of enforcing its own laws? Or are the conservationists at fault for isolating the artisanal fishermen whose livelihood interests coincide with the Ridley’s survival needs? After three decades, it’s a shame we don’t have the answer.

Reducing juvenile age is pointless, so is media trial

Media cannot pretend to be delivering justice. Tinkering with juvenile age will not reduce crime as long as our criminal reforms system remains counter-productive.

FirstPost, 25 Feb, 2013

Nothing, said a science fiction writer, is always absolutely so. Yesterday, responding to a question on reducing the age of juveniles from the existing 18 years to 16, Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir pointed out that only Parliament, and nobody else, could take such a decision. Warning against trial by media, the CJI termed it “a matter of grave concern” and emphasized that cases “should be left to the courts to decide”. He was almost entirely right.

Of course, it is ultimately Parliament’s prerogative which law or amendment it wants to enact. But the media, or any citizens’ group or individual, has every right to lobby for any legal reform it feels necessary. Trial by media in a case, on the other hand, infringes on the exclusive domain of the court. But we also remember quite a few high-profile cases which were reopened only after the media had got into the act. The downside, however, is that media can never follow millions of pending cases and anyway justice should not be seen to be hinging on its preferential intervention.

But the issue of lowering the age of juvenile is a little more complex. There are two principal justifications for according certain legal concessions to an underage person. First, the accused may not be mature enough to fully comprehend the gravity or the consequence of a crime. Secondly, an underage accused is still impressionable and has a far greater chance than an adult to change for the better.

File photo of protests against the Delhi gangrape case. PTI

Globally, the age limit for juveniles (read legal maturity) varies from 16 to 18. In a few places, such as Washington, it depends on the nature of the crime. Many argue that juveniles accused of adult crimes – such as murder and rape —should be treated like adults. In England, juvenile courts do not, as a rule, deal with homicide and are free to send cases of rape to the Crown’s Court. Similarly, most states in the USA treat murder as an adult crime and juvenile courts often transfer cases of severe offences committed by juveniles to regular courts.

While certain homicides — killing of an abusive father by an underage son or daughter, for example — can potentially draw our sympathy, rape is always considered too adult a crime to allow any concession for the juvenile accused. Indeed, the USA’s Centre for Sex Offender Management estimated that juveniles were responsible for 20 percent of all rape and 50 percent of all child molestation cases. Globally, several studies indicate a gradual rise in serious crime committed by the adolescent over the last four decades.

We have not invested much thought in understanding what is turning so many of our very young to crime. Instead, involvement of a 16-year-old in a gruesome rape has made many of us demand that the juvenile age be lowered to 16. Will we press a fresh demand tomorrow if a 13-year-old is caught in the act? The question is not hypothetical because 1300 or more than 5 percent of those arrested for rape in the USA in 2006 were under 15 years. Where will we draw the line? Or are we better off demanding different juvenile age-limits for different crimes?

The argument that only a fraction of those coming from poor socio-economic background or troubled homes take to crime, and hence cannot be shown any mercy, may make sense in the context of adult criminals but not juveniles. But our reluctance to address the issues that push so many underage to crime not only undermines the chances of crime prevention but also of subsequent criminal reform.

The preferential treatment of underage offenders is aimed at giving them a chance to reform. Proper handholding and guidance can have that sobering influence on these young ones. Since most of them do not have a family, or a healthy family atmosphere, they can be sent back to, the onus is on the state to provide them education, healthcare and, most importantly, a home-like atmosphere where a community feeling may revive their interest in the positives and possibilities of life.

Instead, underage offenders are dumped at juvenile homes that have become one of the most fertile breeding ground for hardened criminals. It is anybody’s guess how many juvenile delinquents took their first lesson in crime as orphans or runaway or rescued kids in these homes or shelters where they are routinely subject to sexual and other forms of assaults. By which yardstick should we judge their conduct when they manage to escape these hell-holes and return to society? Whatever be the juvenile age, what purpose does that preferential legal treatment serve when these kids are sent back to the same juvenile homes?

Irrespective of what the CJI feels, we have every right to debate and lobby for the best legal provisions that we feel may secure our society. But that does not mean the media can pretend to be delivering justice. That is the job and responsibility of the court. Similarly, the demand for altering the juvenile age may not significantly impact crime rate unless we consider the very purpose of legal concessions to minors. If we can’t give underage offenders a chance to reform, if they are anyway doomed to a lifetime of crime, how does it matter if they are hanged as adults when they are 18 or 14?

When the tiger shows the way

While experts dither over corridor viability, Rajasthan tigers end three decades of isolation by following the rivers to MP

Tehelka, 22 Feb, 2013 

It was Jaipur, late 2007. A few months before the PMO cleared the plan to fly in tigers to Sariska from Ranthambhore, an IAS officer was holding forth on the subject at a private function. “Let’s build a corridor for tigers; 100-metre wide. How much land (do) we require? It’s not even 200 km between the two forests,” he said, clearly exasperated by the delay.

Just 140 km, a colleague assured him, and generously proposed that the width of the passage be doubled: “We’ll put trees and all. It will be fenced and safe.” The enthusiasm was infectious till a senior forest officer jumped in to play spoilsport.

As forests get fragmented due to rapid incursion of roads, railways, mines, cropland or settlements, maintaining connectivity and therefore healthy gene flow among small wild populations is becoming more challenging than ever. More so, because the popular perception of a wildlife corridor, particularly to those in the corridors of power, is indistinguishable from say, freight corridors.

The term corridor gives an impression of linearity. But animals seldom move like crows fly. The shortest course we chart out for tigers at official meetings and even in research papers may not suit them at all. The route may not have enough water sources or vegetation cover in which they can sneak around. Or it may be just too crowded.

For many years now, experts and officials have been wondering how to make the 2-4 km stretch between Ranthambhore national park (RNP) and Keladevi wildlife sanctuary (KWLS) – both part of the Ranthambhore tiger reserve (RTR) but separated by the Banas river – a safe animal corridor so that tigers from the national park can populate the sanctuary.

The ravine wilderness that connects RNP and KWLS is being flattened for agriculture by local villagers who have established several hamlets to manage their new cropland. Though ecologically vibrant, ravines are classified as wasteland, reclamation of which is officially encouraged. Illegal sand mining on several stretches along the Banas further choke this passageway. Unsurprisingly, of the 50-odd Ranthambhore tigers, only one is settled in KWLS, crowded by dozens of villages and their livestock.

But while the close proximity of RNP and KWLS makes restoring connectivity look feasible, any prospect of reviving the Ranthmbhore-Kuno corridor has long been written off. Tigers from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh mated frequently till the trans-Chambal connectivity snapped three decades ago. While Kuno remained connected to other MP forests, Ranthambhore became an island, hemming in its then population of 14 tigers.

The numbers have multiplied almost four-fold in RNP since. But the only way the Ranthambhore tigers can escape disastrous consequences of inbreeding is through revival of the gene flow from MP. But nobody gave the lost corridor a chance. Once the resident tigers of Kuno were poached, it was readied for lions from Gujarat. When Narendra Modi refused to oblige, the focus shifted to reintroducing cheetahs from Africa.

Between RTR and Kuno, the mighty Chambal river forms the boundary between Rajasthan and MP. In this stretch, five Rajasthan rivers – Mez, Chakan, Kharad, Kundli and Banas -- join the Chambal from the north. Another six tributaries – Kalisindh, Parbati, Seep, Param, Doni and Kuno – reach from the south.

Dispersing tigers prefer to keep to watercourses. Each of these meandering rivers connects RNP to neighbouring forests. Along the Chambal axis, Chakan, Kharad and Kundli lead to Sawai Mansingh sanctuary while Mez offers passage to Ramgarh Bishdhari forests. Kalisindh is the access to Darrah sanctuary while Parbati reaches the forests of Baran district. Kuno and Param rivers pass through the Kuno sanctuary while Doni and Seep flow in the larger Kuno landscape.

In the recent past, Ranthambhore tigers have travelled far and wide – Kota, Bharatpur and Mathura – as the rivers flow. There was no reason why they, if their nerve held, would not reach Kuno in MP. In fact, quite a few floaters – the last one in 2010 -- ventured south inside MP across the Chambal but eventually moved back to Rajasthan.

So, many considered it a fluke when a Ranthambhore male (T38) walked out of RNP’s Sultanpur area in late 2010 and reached Kuno in January 2011. The itinerary is sketchy but T38 walked south-east to cross the Banas and spent two weeks in a patch of ravine forest before crossing the Chambal at its confluence with Param and then followed the river upstream to reach the heart of Kuno. It was a leisurely journey, with many stopovers and kills.

Yet, T38 was merely considered lucky, till a sub-adult tiger decided to match his skills last month. One of the three cubs of T26, the young male left RNP’s Khandar area on 23 January. It reached the Banas the next day and apparently sensing mining activities to its right, turned left along the river, crossed a couple of roads, and climbed atop the hills of KWLS using the only available pass by 26 January. Unimpressed by the mess inside Keladevi, it charted its course down to the Chambal river and across to MP in the next five days.

Here, its intuition took over again and it chose to follow the Kuno river southward. Parallel to the Chambal, runs a 12-feet deep irrigation canal which briefly goes inside a tunnel while passing over the Kuno river. The tiger reached the other side of the canal walking under this tunnel on 5 February and, as if to reward himself, made its first kill in MP soon after.

Then it slowed down in the comfort zone of reserve forests south of Kuno sanctuary that offer ample feral cattle. The tiger has made three more kills since and is not showing any urgency to head southward along the river. It has already walked at least 80 km, more than the linear distance between RNP and Kuno, without being spotted even once and is a day’s walk away from joining predecessor T38 inside the sanctuary.

Unlike T38 in 2011, T26 junior is being tracked daily by the forest departments of the two states with the help of TigerWatch, a Ranthambhore NGO, and village wildlife watchers appointed for the task. Tired of waiting for lions, and now cheetahs, the guards at Kuno sound both excited and nervous to be hosting tigers again. Veterans, who still remember Kuno’s last tigers, are wary of poachers even as they pray that the next Ranthambhore crossover is a female.

The remarkable journeys of the Ranthambhore duo have three lessons for us. The wild does not need handholding and knows what it is up to. The river courses, and the surrounding ravines, must be secured and monitored for tiger migration. Every tiger in transit needs rigorous tracking to avoid poaching or conflict.

Meanwhile, with RNP finally having surplus tigers and habitats not improving in KWLS, dispersal of cats outside the reserve will continue. As a bunch of cubs get ready to break free in the coming months, Kuno is likely to welcome a few more tigers, hopefully females this time, from Ranthambhore.

Once the settlers start breeding in Kuno, young tigers will eventually venture further south inside MP to find partners or perhaps individuals from MP’s northernmost tiger pockets will come checking at Kuno. With time, the reverse wild traffic will hit Ranthambhore, carrying fresh genes to Rajasthan in many decades.

If only we take cue from the tiger instead of deciding for it.

Of Love And Other Interests

Contrasting Accounts Of Two Iconic Conservationists Stop Short Of Prying Open Cupboards That Held More Than Frogs Or Fizzy Drinks

Tehelka, 22 Feb, 2013

I was tempted to read the two books simultaneously. Both deal with wildlife, conservation and conservationists. Both are written by authors in awe of and in love with their subjects. Yet, I finished reading one long before I was done with the other.

Janaki Lenin’s My Husband and Other Animals is a collection of her short pieces written for a newspaper. Soonoo Taraporewala’s Tiger Warrior is a biography based on her interactions with the tiger conservationist Fateh Singh Rathore, his family and friends. The first is infectious in its playfulness; the second is a catalogue of the spoils of a remarkable life.

Lenin is a wildlife documentary filmmaker turned natural history writer who is serious about not appearing to be taking herself or her husband, herpetologist Romulus Whitaker, too seriously. Taraporewala retired as a librarian and brings the formal rigour of the profession to her book even at the cost of being rather mechanical.

Both serve their own purpose. Popular green writing in India ceased to be popular with the passing away of M Krishnan. Unlike most of her contemporaries in the media, Lenin is not easily sentimental and deals more in humour than sermons. The readability of her book has the potential to revive a stagnating genre.

If My Husband and Other Animals can excite readers not deeply into wild things, Tiger Warrior satisfies curiosities about Fateh’s life among his admirers. While his was not a particularly secretive life, Fateh was to tiger conservation what Elvis was to rock ‘n’ roll, and many familiar with only a facet or two of Mr Ranthambhore will thank Taraporewala for chronicling his life in meticulous detail.

Tiger Warrior gives an account of almost everything about Fateh. His ancestry, family, childhood, education, early love and marital discords, how the aspiring actor developed a passion for the tiger and conservation, how he single handedly transformed a messy scrub forest into a tiger haven called Ranthambhore, the many sacrifices he made, the iconic status he achieved, the numerous controversies that followed him and his eventual vindication, his zest for life and defiance before a death foreordained by cancer.

Yet, to me, the real Fateh — in flesh, blood and warts — does not really come through in Tiger Warrior. Taraporewala touches upon every aspect of his life but stops shy of the sensitive. She does talk about the generous tippler who gave up drinking once his liver was damaged. But the unabashed charmer of women remains absent. Fateh’s penchant for acquiring land, not only for his forests but also for himself, what he once described to me as “quintessentially Rajput”, does not find a mention.

Taraporewala notes in passing that Fateh had differences with his long-time friend Valmik Thapar and how fellow conservationists tried to dissuade patrons from funding Fateh’s NGO TigerWatch. But why Fateh fell out with his close friends and compatriots, and how the isolation dismayed and angered him in turn, remain unchartered territories. Nor does the book throw any light on how Fateh, who as an officer dealt with poachers with a degree of ruthlessness, became a believer in the rehabilitation of hunting tribes in his final years.

That said, Taraporewala offers a treasure of unknown nuggets: why Queen Elizabeth credited her treasurer for the tiger she shot herself, how Rajiv Gandhi turned down a state proposal to install a power generator at Jogi Mahal during his stay inside the park, what made Bill Clinton stretch his evening safari much beyond the security schedule, or how many bottles of Coke a young Valmik downed in a single sitting.

But one gets a feeling that Taraporewala relied too much on Fateh’s casual reminiscences even for verifiable facts. For example, top Ranthambhore officials were not removed the very day — as she claims in the book — the Rajasthan police arrested a few poachers following Fateh’s leads. They could not have been, because it was a secret raid, details of which were shared within the government only after days of interrogation and followup investigation. There are a few such tall claims in Tiger Warrior.

Elsewhere, the author gushes about how “every book written by Valmik on Ranthambhore… helped enormously in the writing of this biography”. The downside of this influence is the repetition of a few of Thapar’s errors in her book: Taraporewala writes that “In November 2004, the Wildlife Institute of India issued a report saying there were no tigers left in Sariska.” Such a report would’ve made quite a few errant IFS officers guilty of perjury, if only it was ever issued.

Coming soon after Fateh’s death, Tiger Warrior is a must-have on any green bookshelf and will serve as the prime reference for all future biographies of Mr Ranthambhore. My only complaint is that Taraporewala leaves it to adjectives to give the reader a sense of the “gregarious person with a wicked sense of fun, like a naughty but very lovable child” who was “exuberant, large-hearted and generous to a fault”. It’s a true description of Fateh that she does not care to illustrate with too many anecdotes.

But whenever she recounts one, the narrative lights up instantly: Fateh’s elder daughter Padmini once overheard a fellow passenger in a train brag about knowing “the great Tiger Man, six feet two inches tall (about half a foot more than Fateh’s height), who strode effortlessly through the most rugged landscapes, drank a bucketful of rich creamy milk and ate a whole goat every single day. Just as Padmini was trying to envisage the effect that such a rich diet would have on her father’s weak digestive system, a ticket checker came along, and spoilt the fun by recognising her and asking after her father.”

Lenin’s My Husband and Other Animals, on the other hand, is conversational, personal and intimate — almost to a fault. Unlike Taraporewala — who, for all her devotion to Ranthambhore and Fateh, always remained a regular tourist visiting from Mumbai — Lenin moved in with an assortment of wildlife, including frogs, ants, snakes, monkeys and a husband, at a wild farm. This ‘naturalisation’ of a city woman entails a series of petty but unusual challenges. Naturally, Lenin is not short of stories.

Being part of the ‘Page 3 crowd’ of the conservation circuit, she enjoys access to a range of experts and taps that knowledge base well. Most of her quests are esoteric and yet intriguing enough to keep the reader hooked. Her interest ranges from ‘immaculate animal conception’ to body odour. She explores the connection between sambhar, the south Indian dish, and sambar, the Asian deer; examines how different animal potty habits reflect on Indians who relieve themselves outdoors; and learns to flog trees that do not flower easily.

Of course, My Husband and Other Animals is a lot about the husband. We learn a lot about Rom’s early life, adventures, quirks, mischievousness, determination and achievements. Lenin seldom uses qualifiers to describe her man but the numerous stories she narrates portray “the dude” as “the king of cool” whose voice often “trails” and who is possibly vulnerable to bullying at home.

Lenin’s breezy style stumbles on occasion, when she attempts to address less esoteric issues such as relocation of villages or releasing hand-raised animals in the wild. Even otherwise, not all essays conform to the general flair that marks My Husband and Other Animals. Also, like the Gerald Durrell-inspired title, some ideas explored in the book are not particularly original.

She is at her best when not encumbered by a brief or purpose. “Why do they (animals) play?” wonders Lenin in an essay, “To me, that’s a silly question. Why do we play? It relieves stress, builds camaraderie… and mostly, it is just sheer good fun.” She could well be explaining why she writes, or why one must read her book.

Karnataka’s conservation fix: To fetch water for tigers or not

Dry summer spells weed out the old and the weak from wild populations. If only our misplaced welfare motive would allow.

FirstPost, 18 Feb, 2013

It is nature versus nurture, with a twist. The green fraternity is engaged in a strange battle in Karnataka over artificially replenishing waterholes in tiger reserves in the dry summer months. While one group has lashed out against the decision of the state forest department to do so, others feel there is nothing wrong with the move as long as tankers do not ferry contaminated water from outside.

Former member of the National Board for Wildlife Praveen Bhargav, wildlife biologist Ullas Karanth and conservationist KM Chinappa are among those opposed to unnecessary interventions that disrupt natural ecological processes. Others claim that drought management has been a common practice that features in the guideline issued by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

Tiger with bait. Image courtesy: Aditya Singh.

Dry summer months test animals in the wild. It is a weeding process that eliminates the old and the weak so that the young and healthy have access to more resources and a better chance to thrive. It ensures that only the best genes remain in circulation and the future generations of animals are born robust.

Yet, conflicting situations, such as the one now playing out in Karnataka, arise because most of us cannot or do not differentiate between conservation and welfare. Put simply, animal welfare is about caring for every single animal. It is relevant for domestic animals because the very act of domestication makes us responsible for our dogs or cattle. It is natural that we feed the house cat daily and take it to a vet when it is sick.

But wildlife conservation has nothing to do with the fate of individual animals. The future of the species does not depend on the survival of a famished or injured tiger. Yet, we are increasingly restless to “help out” wildlife. But every time we treat an injured wild tiger or feed one that cannot hunt, we breach a cardinal rule of conservation by interrupting nature that knows far better.

When it is not pure sentiment, our welfare motive is often an excuse. In 2010, for example, the West Bengal government decided to release some captive-bred spotted deer in Sunderbans to discourage tigers from venturing into human settlements, looking for food. The authorities would have us, and perhaps the tigers, believe that releasing a few dozen cheetals in an area teeming with domestic cattle (more than 400 per square kilometre) would dissuade the big cats from easy takeaway meals.

The move, in fact, was to dump surplus animals in Sunderbans in the garb of a conservation drive after failing to manage deer populations in captivity. Many animals would have carried tuberculosis infection from their squalid enclosures. Bereft of any fear of humans, most were destined to boost Sunderbans’ flourishing venison trade.

But even when our welfare motive is sincere, it often harms the wild. While many want to brand every carnivore that had a chance encounter with humans a maneater, animal welfare groups refuse to accept that a confirmed problem animal must be eliminated as quickly as possible. They first question the ‘problem’ tag. Then, they insist that the animal be taken to a zoo rather than be put down.

Such bargaining often causes delay and, at times, more damage by turning the affected communities against conservation and putting entire species at risk for the welfare of one animal. Ironically, from the perspective of wildlife conservation, it does not matter if a problem tiger is shot dead or taken to some zoo because both mean one tiger less in the wild.

Every time a state forest department wants to cull wild boars or blue bulls where the animals have become pests, the welfare lobby goes up in arms and proposes alternative mitigation methods such as electric fencing around agricultural fields. But it is very difficult to keep animals away using such contraptions. Used locally, electric fencing diverts animals to the next village. Used extensively, it turns forests into fenced zoos. But how does it help the animals?

If we really believe that animals are raiding crops or cattle because there is little food inside forests, denying them access to cropland will eventually bring down their populations. If we are fine with death by starvation far from our sight, why fuss over culling?

Nothing fired our inspiration to help the wild more than the 1966 blockbuster based on Joy Adamson’s Born Free. No wonder so many of us are hooked to the idea of nursing wild animals particularly big cats, in distress. Across the country, we bait and treat old and injured tigers or bring up orphaned cubs to release them in the wild.

In Ranthambhore, tigress Machhli is just one of many wild cats fed by the authorities. In 2010, an orphaned cub raised by the forest staff was killed by a wild tiger and another died of an injury while trying to hunt. In 2011, three villagers were killed by hand-raisedleopards released in the wild by the Mysore royalty and a Bangalore-based NGO.

Replenishing waterholes so that tigers and other wildlife do not go thirsty may not have such extreme consequences – unless the water is contaminated – but it reflects the same selfish welfare motive. We want to return orphaned cubs back to the wild, keep old tigers on food doles, treat injured wildlife or ferry water for them because it makes us feel good. More than the wild, it is our perception of the wild that we really care for and want to pamper.

Our national security plan: Racing China to disaster

The neighbours do not really need an arms race. The competition for growth and infrastructure is suicidal enough.

FirstPost, 10 Feb, 2013

After Bollywood, distrust of Pakistan and cricket (not necessarily in that order), what unites most Indians is our fear of China. The RSS worries about the Chinese cyber threat. The CII is wary of cheap Chinese hardware. Our pharmas are jittery about their dependence on imports from China. Even our sportspersons tend to lose it in the mind against Chinese competition.

But the most common frustration among Indians—from the National Conference to the Trinamool Congress and from senior intelligence officials to intelligent think tanks—is that we have failed to match China’s infrastructural progress. A vast road and rail network in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) gives Beijing the military edge, massive hydro-electric projects close to our borders — it’s a nightmare unfolding.

It is ironic that the big bully at Saarc should feel so threatened by its only bigger neighbour. It is still more ironic that India, instead of learning from its mistakes, is so desperate to play catch-up on China’s terms.

The Chinese feats look impressive. The train to Lhasa has been running across the roof of the world since 2006. The Tibetan capital is also connected to the Sikkim border 430 km away and the journey takes less than three hours. Since 2008, road network in the TAR has expanded by almost 20,000 km. As a result, China can apparently deploy 30 divisions or 4,50,000 soldiers at the borders within a month and outnumber our forces by at least 3:1.

Since the drubbing in 1962, the Indian strategy was to keep border roads in terrible conditions to stop an invading Red Army from marching in too fast. It took us nearly four decades to hit the other extreme. Now we want 18 strategic tunnels so that troop movements remain invisible. A 9-km tunnel under Rohtang pass at 13,400-feet is being built to facilitate mobilisation along the Sarchu-Leh region. Apparently, five more are proposed in Jammu and Kashmir, two in Sikkim and quite a few in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

Work is also in progress since 1999-2000 on 73 all-weather border roads, out of which 42 are to be ready by the end of this year. According to media reports, the capability development plan on the northern borders is worth Rs 26,155 crore while border infrastructure projects worth Rs 9,243 crore are being carried out in the eastern theatre. There are also calls to take the railways up to Nathu La in Sikkim.

Almost all of these projects threaten to ravage virgin ecosystems in remote areas. The standard construction process in India involves indiscriminate blasting in the hills that destroys a lot more than is necessary, including vast areas in the slopes where the debris slides down. The laggard pace of construction so typical of India prolongs the damage.

At each camping site, migrant labourers set up large camps and fell forests for firewood because contractors do not provide fuel. They divert water from natural sources for both construction and household use and dump garbage, including solid waste, in the open. Worse, most of these labour camps become permanent settlements after completion of projects.

Does China fare any better? For all its cutting edge technology that lays down roads and tracks in record time, it could not (or did not really care to) insulate the environment from its development rush. While little information is available on the ecological impact of its various smaller projects, the famous Qinghai-Lhasa railway tracks, and the highway parallel to it, have caused irreversible damage to what biologist George Schaller called “the high altitude Serengeti” – the expansive home to a fascinating range of flora and fauna, 142 of those endangered.

Worst has been the impact on the chiru, the highly-endangered Tibetan antelope. The alignments cut off the migratory routes that the animals take to their northern breeding grounds, just like the caribou do in North America or the wildebeest in East Africa. Though 33 wildlife passages have been created along this 1,956-km railroad, these are far from adequate for providing connectivity. In Canada, a 75-km highway through the Banff national park has 22 underpasses. In all of India, animal passages do not add up to even a dozen.

At an average height of 4,000 meters, Tibet’s delicate ecosystem takes decades, even centuries, to recover fully and large scale destruction of vegetation is leading to rapid desertification on both sides of the road and railways. The development spurt has shrunk Tibet’s grassland areas by more than one-fourth since the 1970s. Between 1949 and 1985, Tibet already lost nearly half its forest to extraction of timber worth $54 billion.

Meanwhile, improved connectivity has made exploration and transportation of minerals convenient in Tibet which is China’s last refuge after having exhausted all major non-ferrous minerals. By 2020, half of China’s major mineral reserves may go empty. Rapid growth exacts its price. Yet, there is no clarity on environmental safety measures yet in and around Tibet’s minefields.

The same peril has forced China to turn to Tibet for water and electricity. River water is being diverted from west to east China to support agriculture. The hydroelectric project on Yamdrok Tso, a sacred Tibetan lake, had triggered a fierce environmental debate in the 1990s. While construction of a 510 MW plant at Zangmu in TAR is going on now, China has announced three new projects to take the cumulative yield from Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) beyond 1,500 MW.

In response, India signed MoUs for 140 hydel projects in Arunachal Pradesh alone. To match China’s three new dams, the Environment ministry has hurriedly cleared two projects in Tawang district. In doing so, it skirted recommendations made by statutory bodies to examine the cumulative impact of 13 projects within just 2,085 sq km of Tawang before clearing any. It made up a lie of an excuse saying that Tawang II was the first and only project cleared and the rest would be subject to cumulative impact assessment. Last April, the 780MW Nyamjang chhu project—coming up on a tributary of the Tawang river—got the ministry’s nod.

While governments in India bulldoze laws and regulations to compete with China, what does the Chinese experience really tell us?

Due to intense developmental activities, the roof of the world is getting hot. Cracks have developed in the railroad’s concrete structures as its permafrost foundation is sinking and cracking in some sections of the 550-km unstable stretch. While Xinhua reported that the government did not expect that the tracks would last the next 40 years, foreign engineers in the project gave it 20 years. Even reinforcing the main Lhasa highway cost China $146.6 million in the last decade.

High levels of deforestation in Tibet has also led to acute sedimentation in the Huang Ho, the Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), the Yangtze and the Senge Khabab (Indus). More dams are not helping these rivers that support nearly half the world’s population and much of its biodiversity. If over-harnessing continues, China will have to invent new water sources for irrigation and substitutes for hydro power. Inexplicably, China is yet to tap Tibet’s Sahara-like solar energy potential before killing its mighty rivers.

While India cannot quite escape the climatic impact of any major ecological change in the Tibet plateau as it influences pan-Asian weather, we are rushing to destroy our own rivers, forests and mountains by blindly emulating the short-sighted neighbour. We are trading very tangible water, food and livelihood security for a perception called national security. There may or may not be an Indo-China war in the future but, at this rate, we will certainly not need one to doom ourselves.

A Damned Race For Power

 How we threw away the green rulebook in our obsession to keep up with China

Tehelka, 8 Feb, 2013

WITH MORE than 80 percent forest cover, Arunachal Pradesh is one of the last repositories of virgin wilderness where new species are still discovered every few months. The state also faces a 15 percent power shortfall. So, a section of Arunachal’s political leadership is desperate to harness the vast potential of its numerous fast-flowing rivers. More than 140 MoUs have been inked to set up hydro-electricity projects (HEPS) in the state.

In Tawang district, this power rush reached an absurd high. Seven rivers flow through the Tawang basin, where as many as 13 HEPS have been proposed across just 2,085 sq km. There is hardly any agricultural land left in this hilly district where the armed forces and civic infrastructural facilities occupy more than half the area. Once the HEPS come up, even the remaining cropland by the rivers will be lost. Besides, 13 HEPS will require a peak workforce of more than 1 lakh people, double the population of the district. One can imagine what the influx will mean to the Monpa residents, whose indigenous rights are protected by the Constitution.

A part of the Eastern Himalayan Biodiversity hotspot, Tawang is also one of the 200 globally important eco-regions and the only place on earth that hosts all varieties of Rhododendron. It is also home to the red panda, snow leopard, mountain goat and 150 species of birds. The impact of intensive blasting, tunnelling and submergence required for building 13 HEPS in this pristine landscape will be an environmental disaster.

Only nine years ago, then chief minister Gegong Apang announced a plan to set up a 2,000 sq km bio-reserve. As political priorities changed rapidly in Itanagar and New Delhi, Buddhist monks from the Monpa community made the Tawang monastery the centre of resistance. Since April last year, Save Mon Region Federation has repeatedly defied Section 144 and clashed with the police to demand that all 13 proposed HEPS, including the 600 MW Tawang-I and 800 MW Tawang-II, be scrapped. As recently as Christmas Eve last year, a violent showdown led to several arrests and injured protesters.

While both Tawang-I and II already had the required green clearances from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the pressure from the local communities and the obvious irrationality of setting up so many HEPS in such a tiny basin made the Forest Advisory Committee recommend a cumulative impact study instead of evaluating each project on its own. That was last September. In just four months, the table was turned.

Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan came under strong pressure from various infrastructure ministries and the PMO. Her high-profile face-off with Finance Minister P Chidambaram on the proposed National Investment Board (NIB) forced the PMO to dilute the NIB’s overriding powers and rechristen it a Cabinet committee. But soon enough, it was time for quid pro quo.

The NHAI claimed the first pound of flesh by making the MoEF allow work along the non-forest parts of the projects, pending forest clearance. With the coal ministry already breathing down her neck, Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia paid Natarajan a visit. Then, China announced three new dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) along the border.

While construction of a 510 MW plant at Zangmu in the Tibet Autonomous Region is going on since 2010, the three new projects — at Dagu (640 MW), Jiacha (320 MW) and Jiexu (unspecified) — took the cumulative yield to beyond 1,470 MW. The Indian answer, insisted the power ministry, had to be fast-tracking Tawang-I and II and generate 1,400 MW.

So, the MoEF promptly wrote to Arunachal CM Nabam Tuki to proceed with the basin study and the Tawang HEPS were granted stage-I clearance without bothering for any cumulative or specific impact study. There is a rider of a consolation though: the other 11 HEPS will have to wait till their cumulative impact is assessed. That is until China decides to come up with a few more dams.

The growth vs green debate: Not in the name of the poor

The poor custodians of natural resources on the ground have become dispensable pawns in the games the growth and the green lobbies play.

FirstPost, 4 Feb, 2013

As the growth versus green debate intensifies with the Environment ministry issuing benchmarks for marking no-go areas, the coal ministry and the NHAI building pressure for clearances through the PMO and the National Investment Board being rechristened as Cabinet Committee on Investment, both sides are building their case on the poor’s right to a better life. Unfortunately, it is a matter of convenience, and not conviction, for both.

Conservationists are mostly well-to-do hypocrites who fly around the world to fight for virgin nature and thereby seek to perpetuate poverty among the less privileged. Environmentalism is an industry that supports lakhs of activists and experts most of whom are not averse to the good things in life (read large carbon footprints) and deal mostly in banal symbolism of turning off taps or observing earth-hour once a year. Most of them are also anti-people (read anti-poor) and believe in feudal models of conservation through exclusion.

The poor grudge the environmentalism that wants to create inviolate areas by uprooting villages or denying people their traditional rights over natural resources. While it is the most convenient means to protect nature in its pristine form, wilderness often stands a better chance in the custody of local communities. Ownership does not isolate the poor from the cause of conservation. In the three-way battle that is unfolding all over the country, their support is invaluable when the greens take on the forces of growth.

Development or just a menial job in a mine for him? Reuters

Certain areas need to be left undisturbed — even if they sit atop mineral riches or stand in the way of roads and railways — for their irreplaceable ecological value. It is in such places that the growth argument depicting environmentalism as anti-poor gets vocal. Ironically, when the local poor oppose projects such as mines and industries, the growth argument shifts track to go national: what if the ignorant locals do not appreciate the benefits of a project, it must get through in the national interest.

So the growth advocates demand destructive access to the last remaining pristine forests, mountains, rivers or coasts in the name of nation building which apparently entails hauling the poor above the poverty line. Apparently, the state cannot provide the poor tribal basic healthcare or education because the so-called ignorant lot – the green hypocrites and the tribals themselves — refuse to allow the state to rip apart virgin forests for extracting minerals or setting up factories.

Without encumbering readers with reams of available data, suffice to say that no mine or mega factory has significantly bettered the lot of the local poor. A few low-paying menial jobs are all that come at the cost of displacement and loss of traditional resources and livelihood. At the same time, the gain to the national exchequer has never compared favourably to the largesse offered to investors. Let’s not even go into the obvious dynamics of how money eventually finds its way into deeper pockets.

Growth cannot be achieved without harnessing natural resources. The poverty map of the world overlaps with that of its best remaining wilderness. The same is true for India. Our poorest districts are also the greenest. People like you and me are better off than the poor tribal because our forefathers cut off their share of the forests that once stood on the now-barren but prosperous parts of India. The poor tribals are poor because their predecessors did not monetise their forests.

The growth lobby now wants to usurp those remaining forests to line their own pockets in the name of helping the tribals out of poverty. Worse, now that the value of the last remaining wilderness is appreciated by the greens, they want to dislodge the tribals from the very forests their forefathers conserved.

But as their numbers multiply and forests shrink, the forest communities can barely sustain themselves with natural produce alone. The pressure is telling on the last remaining wilderness across the country. But if forests must disappear, the right of extraction should stay with the communities that historically nurtured those areas and not with the miners or industrialists from outside. If forests must be conserved by imposing rights restriction, the same communities must be compensated for their rights and historical services.

In simpler terms, if we so much value the forests others did not cut down, we must share the wealth we made by cutting down our forests everywhere else. It cannot be a pittance in the name of compensation. Our economy cannot grudge offering the forest communities their rightful share. The state must invest the revenue generated elsewhere in healthcare, education and other civic infrastructure across our poor forested districts. It cannot crib about missing out on the forestland and mines. It must instead factor in the priceless ecological services.

If we do not blindly rush to harness the remaining natural resources and also invest in vast areas we hitherto considered unproductive, no doubt our growth as we perceive it will suffer. But however dirty the word sounds to most of us, sustainability is a reality none of us can escape. Ecological security is the most crucial aspect of national security. That arbitrary benchmark of a 9 or 11 per cent growth is a burnout formula. We have to make a choice if we instead prefer to rationalise our targets and last longer.

Even in a more realistic scenario, some extractive use of natural resources will always be necessary to keep the economy going. The benefits in such cases should first reach the host communities. Instead of merely heaping them with doles, all developmental (and conservation) projects that come up on their land with their consent should offer them an ownership stake.

It is sad enough that the poor tend to have the least say in the debate despite having the material possession of resources on the ground over which the growth and the green lobbies spar. If equity is a distant dream, they can at least be spared the fate of dispensable pawns.