Conservation of forest and wildlife

— Tokheswar Borah
Article 48A of Directive Principles of Indian Constitution provides for in clear and unambiguous terms State’s commitment to protect the environment. It states, “The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forest and wildlife of the country”.

The conservation of forest and wildlife is the most complex problem for the administrator to deal with. It requires conscious effort for systematically deal with the problem from the viewpoint of wildlife conservation. Different strategies had been worked out with a view to contain the problem under the purview of explicit policy guidelines. However, it remained a distant dream. In his article “Indigenous knowledge in the Conservation and use of World Forests” Dorrel A Posey says, “Conservation has always been a cultural question, although environmentalists have acted for decade as though the preservation of nature had nothing to do with the human species. Today, however, experienced environmentalists and conservationists recognise that unless people have direct stake and interest in conservation even the best designed projects in the world stand little chance for long term success”.

Deforestation has posed a serious threat and endangered the lives of wild animals. The forests are the home of wild animals. The importance of forests had been universally recognised. Most of the sanctuaries have villages within their boundaries and wildlife population live in close proximity to villages. Due to increase in human population and hunger for land within vicinity of the forest area, the problem has become more alarming.

Elephants live in forest and hilly areas where tall grasses abound. Mainly they are vegetarian and fond of grass, shrubs, leaves and twigs. Due to scarcity of food, which caused as a result of encroachment in the forest areas, elephants come outside the forest area, travel in herds and move from one place to another in search of fodder. The villagers drive out the elephants to save their crop and thus begins man-elephant conflict. The man-elephant conflict continues to grow unabated. The man-elephant conflict has intensified in the State. The rampant destruction of forest by the illegal encroachers, to meet their selfish motive has made the situation more serious. From the year 2001 to 2006 (August) the number of human casualties was 239 against 265 elephants . Of these 60 were natural death and other deaths were caused by tiger attack, disease, infighting and senility, poisoning, electrocution, accident and poaching. The poachers hunted elephants for ivory.

The Kaziranga National Park of Assam, which is famous for one horned rhinoceros, also abounds in wild buffalo, tiger, swamp deer. The number of wild animals and species is as follows: swamp deer 681 (2007), elephant 1293 (2006), buffalo 1048 (2007), rhino 1858 (2005) and tiger 86 (2000).

The large scale poaching of rhinos caused serious concern. Since 1965 to 2008, poachers killed 710 rhinos. This was a great loss to our State. There was a superstitious belief among the people that rhino horn contains aphrodisiac properties. SM Nair, an environmentalist says, “The horn is keratinous in composition, being a modification of the hair and has no medicinal or aphrodisiac properties, contrary to the commonly held belief. Large-scale poaching for the rhino horn because of the above misinformation has led to a decline in its population”. The illegal trader killed tigers for their skin. The Nameri National Park, which is famous for white winged wood duck locally known as deo-haah also possesses 300 species of birds. It also has 92 tigers (from 1997 to 2005), 10 leopards (2005) apart from brisbon, sambar, hog deer, barking deer and binturong. The Manas reserve has the distinction of possessing the largest number of India’s most endangered species of mammal and birds. It also has elephant, rhino, wild buffalo, hog hospid hare, hoolock gibbon, golden langur, tiger, leopard, clouded leopard, binturong, sloth beer, gharial, python. The great Indians hornbills are found there. Pobitora wildlife sanctuary shelters 81 rhinos in just 38.81 sqr kms. Pobitora is also a bird sanctuary with 216 winged species. many of them migratory. It has 24 species of mammals that include buffalo, leopard, fishing cat, wild boar, jungle cat, civet rhesus, macaque, pangolin python, gharial, gingetic and dolphin.

The large scale cutting of trees by the illegal encroachers by way of construction of houses at Balipara Reserve Forest located adjacent to the Nameri Wildlife Sanctuary have led to several ecological damages and threatened the lives of wild animal and species. The illegal traders in animal skins have been responsible for the killing of large number of tigers and leopards. Unabated hunting of wildlife for pleasure, food, skin and tusk posed a serious threat to survival of wildlife. Habitat destruction, which has an adverse impact on wildlife and direct bearing on loss of environment, which provides the animal food and breeding ground and resting sites. Human exploitation of natural resources has led to the extinction of many species.

David A Murno, former Director General of IVCN made the following statement during a presentation on ‘A strategy for the conservation of wild living resources’ at the 44th North American Wildlife and Natured Resource conference in 1979 at Toronto, Canada said “Conservation is on the brink of massive failure. Paradoxically it also faces opportunities for success that it has never had before”.

The depletion of wildlife cannot be attributed to the over exploitation of our natural resources to meet the needs of ever increasing human population. The habitat destruction has caused a serious threat to survival of wild life. Dr SM Nair, Programme Director, Centre for Environment Education, New Delhi and founder Director of National Museum of Natural History says – “Conservation does not mean just preserving wildlife as it is at the cost of man. Conservation involves sustainable or wise utilisation of natural resources. We depend on nature for all our needs. If we overexploit these resources, it will not last for ever”.

Deforestation has a number of deleterious local effects. Deforestation resulted in loss of food and shelter of the wildlife population. Deforestation also results in loss of food, shelter and other resources for local inhabitants. Conservation of wildlife needs a long-term pragmatic approach. It needs well-defined policy to build up professional cadre of personnel fully trained in all aspects of conservation of wildlife and sanctuary management.

The government commitment to conservation of wild life and checking of encroachment could not succeed without the support of people. It is not a one-way traffic. The voluntary agencies and the action groups should come forward to mobilise public opinion to make effective contribution for conservation of wildlife and environment.
(The writer is Special Officer to Commissioner, North Assam Division, Tezpur). source: assam tribune editorial 17.09.08