Chasing a utopian dream

The news of the conservation crisis has created anguish and forced people into deep introspection.

This year will be regarded as a watershed in the around 40 year long tiger conservation history of the country. The news of the conservation crises in the past few months have made us all anguished, and have forced us to resign ourselves to deep introspection.

What should actually be done? Everybody has something or the other to offer as a solution to the predicament that has focused the world attention on India. Naturally, this situation has had to yield several options, prioritisations, and ideas of revamp - some of them, of course, outlandish.

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There are well-meaning activists who have carved their niche out of the wildlife, sociological and economic fields, to make it a distinct discipline dealing with the park-people affairs. They brood over the possibility, or rather, urgency of keeping or even re-creating humanised wildlife protected areas where people along with their livestock and agricultural practices can co-exist with wildlife and its habitats.

They are already convinced that it is only the outside of the boundaries of the protected areas that exert biotic pressure and bring wildlife offenders and enmity inside, while those living in the park observe stoicism towards wildlife or its habitats. All those in favor of humanised wildlife ecosystems are of the opinion that wildlife conservation in India is based on the flawed western models where forests are accepted as wilderness areas, whereas in our country these inhabit millions of people as dependents, and all policies/ strategies of wildlife conservation, which in any way disturb their lifestyle are bound to play havoc with them, and will ultimately meet with failure.

India, the sixth largest country in the world, constitutes only around 2.4% of the total landmass, 1% of its forests, and 0.5% of its rangelands. But, the country with over one billion humans, increasing spirally, however, harbours around 16% of the total world population.

The magnitude of the annual increase in the Indian population can be realised from the fact that the country produces nearly the total population of Australia or Sri Lanka every year. A past study of India's population underlines that the country has more people than all of Africa and also more than North America and South America together. The country's population more than doubled between 1947 and 1991.

Now let us see the startling statistics of the decadal population growth in the country. In the Sixties of the last century, the population increased by 21.5 per cent. Between 1961 and 1971, the country's population rose by 24.8 per cent. However after recording a slight decrease in the Seventies, the population increased by 24.7 per cent, and from 1981 to 1991, by 23.9 pe rcent. And the last decade of the last century also recorded almost the same pattern of the decadal population growth.

The demographic disaster also reveals some shocking facts. India's average population density is higher than that of any other country of comparable size. The highest densities are not only in heavily urbanized regions but also in areas that are mostly agricultural, and on an average around 300 people live in one sq. km. As per the GEO, State of the Environment in Asia Pacific 2000 UN/ADB and State of Environment Reports, in India, approximately 57 per cent of the land is under some form of degradation.

India has also been reported to support 20% of the world's livestock population, and an average of 42 animals graze in a hectare of land against the threshold maximum of 5 animals per hectare.

Going by the past demographic performance of the country, do we expect any projection of significant decrease in growth rate, let alone the impossible 0% or the near about in the foreseeable future? Well, absolutely not! The trend has been playing havoc with out natural resources since the time immemorial! The per capita forest land in our country is barely .07 hectare, one of the lowest proportions in the world as compared to the world's average of .60 hectare and some of the African countries'.85 hectare.

This population explosion, the root cause of a wide range of our problems, has resulted in many a natural and environmental disaster, and needs no elaboration. But those against the relocation of villages outside the wildlife protected areas are too optimistic to accept the dread of these trends. They voice their unsubstantiated and emotional opinion and bail out the villages inside wildlife protected areas by saying that they will undertake only sustainable use of natural resources.

The demographic statistics is not able to convince them that the so called sustainability will last only a few years. Their self-delusion has made them blissfully unaware that what an ecologically irreversible trend a protected area of, say, around 1000 sq. km., harboring villages of 8 to 10,000 human populations with even half this of livestock, will undergo in the near future. They are not convinced either that how naturally prone an average sized protected area in the country is to fragmentation and human activities, hopefully, however restraint, and will accelerate this process.

Easier said than done, there is such an intricate interplay of various demographic, ecological and economic limiting factors in the ever increasing biotic pressures, that it will be a Herculean task to control them in a humanized ecosystem, and the huge ecological losses incurred at the very initial stages of the experimentation itself will be precariously irreversible.

This has to be agreed upon at the outset that the population explosion and the rapid shrinkage of the forested land are the main causes of the present plight of wildlife ecosystems throughout the country. As there are no easier solutions at hand to confront the root cause with, the above concept is a mere desperate bid to accommodate a new Australia or Sri Lanka, being created each year, by further squeezing our wildlife habitats.

There must be a realistic approach, and not an emotional or a philanthropic one to seriously consider such possibility vis-à-vis the fast growing consumerism among the rural people, and the government's own efforts for their socio-economic upliftment in every sphere of life. Therefore, this will only prove to be working at cross-purposes. When we accept the fact that progression, and not regression, is an evolutional and materialistic reality in every social community, it is bound to clash with the ecology of wild animals more seriously and decisively in a humanised ecosystem than otherwise.

The oft-repeated catchword "coexistence" when observed in its "true" sense held good till a few decades back and later it gave in to the mindless sportsmanship, and the materialistic and expansionistic attitudes of the people, bringing the wildlife to the verge of extinction.

Therefore, the setting aside of a very small percentage, of the total forest area as nature reserves is still the best and most effective arrangement to ensure the management of whatever yet remains of our wildlife, which has always been a miserable loser proving this "coexistence" to be a most inexpedient option in the present scenario.

And, as there is absolutely no control over any of the human dimensions competing with the wild animal populations, such fantastical alternatives will never cease to stimulate our imagination and will bid the precious wildlife adieu forever, sooner rather than later. Furthermore, we must not forget that in spite of such a large area of forested land in the country, the scientific information on the status of wildlife suggests that it is only the protected areas which still sustain, apart from some highly endangered animal species, the viable wild animal populations of any consequence.

There is no denying the fact that people's participation with their fair share in management will definitely go a long way in the effective management, and cooperation, not conflict with the managers, will ensure longer sustainability of wildlife reserves in the country. And this has already been recognized by the government in the form of eco-development in the peripheral villages of wildlife reserves. This participatory experiment is also said to have evoked a good response from the target people.

However, this is not possible to let the whole concept penetrate the core areas of the established tiger reserves. Though even a die-hard pessimist conservationist has to believe the attractive catchwords of the above philosophy, it must be translated into easily palpable and solid results before risking its extension into our hard managed protected areas.

We must, however, ensure that our "relocated brethrens" are well provided for in all possible respects in their so called new "hostile" environment and they do not consider themselves as "displaced" or "dumped".

Past experiences tell us that villagers are afraid of laxity in after-cares rather than relocations themselves. Therefore, the relocated should be given a much better package for their sacrifice for wildlife conservation. Besides, as wildlife conservation is a national cause, instead of thrusting the entire responsibility of relocation on the already over-burdened park managers, other departments such as agriculture, rural development, and irrigation should also be roped in under a well-coordinated strategy.

This can easily be achieved with some foresight and a well phased-out planning. Secondly, the concepts of ecodevelopment and joint forest management, is the last resort for the effective protection and management of our nature reserves and have a very important role to play in reducing significantly the dependence of the surrounding inhabitants on the forest and convincing them of, and providing them with, the means for alternative and eco-friendly ways of living, which is the need of the hour.

As the park-people conflicts depend solely upon the factors discussed above, we should not be too optimistic about it unless either the threats posed to the wildlife population are completely wiped out, which is rather out of the question, or we are prepared to resign ourselves to compromising the fragile wildlife and its habitats and leaving them to fend for themselves.