The great wildlife debate

THE surge of enthusiasm in the realm of wildlife conservation, so palpable in the 1970s and early 1980s, seems to have ebbed out. After the implementation of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, strict conservation was enforced. Still, we seem to have only an impressionistic estimate of the status of wildlife in India and the recent uncovering of poaching rackets have further deepened our concern.

This anxiety has generated a major debate around the whole ideology of conservation, a debate that is often echoed in the seminars on conservation and in nature writings. Some of the strident voices of this school of thought are Ashish Kothari, Mahesh Rangarajan and Vasant Saberwal. In this book, these three proponents of the People for Conservation argument elaborate their points of view, in eight chapters. They trace the origin of much of the ills of conservation work to the policy of excluding people from conservation strategies. They point out that unless the local people are integrated into any project of conservation, it will not succeed. The authors touch upon the important milestones of wildlife conservation in India and point out how people living in and around the forests have gradually lost out. The pre-colonial rulers were not intrusive as far as forest management was concerned. It was the British who saw forests as a great source of revenue and decided to take strict control. The deprived the local people of the benefit of their traditional common resources. Later, strict protection of sanctuaries made the local folks ecomigrants and, in time, impoverished. In many protected areas, the people around have turned hostile to governmental programmes of conservation and this is one reason for the dwindling of wildlife in India.

Their argument is that to save what is left of our wildlife we should adopt a different strategy than what obtains now and that local people should not be excluded from the management of sanctuaries; that their traditional rights and privileges should not be denied. They argue that the interests of local communities should be accommodated in the conservation strategies and advocate a participatory policy. Otherwise they see no hope for Indian wildlife. Moreover, since different parties rule in the states, it is impracticable to expect the centre to effectively implement conservation measures. Local initiative is the only way, the say.

The counter to this argument comes mostly from forest officials, in other words personnel who are actually implementing the conservation programme in India. They see the situation as too precarious to indulge in any experiment and advocate rigid enforcement of the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act. But this side of the debate is not articulated much except through few individuals like Shekhar Singh. He says that participatory management could work if we have large tracts of forests. But with only two per cent of area providing protected areas, which are like little ecological islands, it may not be wise to relax the controls. Some of the sanctuaries are small, sustaining a tiny, single population of endangered animals - the Sangai deer Kaibul Lamjo sanctuary or the lions of Gir for instances. He also points out instances of forests controlled by locals, where wildlife has been completely decimated, such as the Khasi hills of Meghalaya. In the other protected areas also, even with all the controls, the threats to wildlife and their habitats have not decreased. Hopefully, the publishers of this book will consider documenting the other side of this debate also.

The Tracts for the Times series, under which this book has been published, a brain child of Dr. Romila Thapar and Dr. S. Gopal, aims to bring out a series of monographs dealing with issues of contemporary concern. The idea is to provide the lay reader meaningful information, critical perspective and theoretical reflections of the subjects chosen. The earlier titles included Dalit Visions and Understanding Biodiversity. Like the other titles in the series, this book also has been impressively produced and is well edited. The meticulous documentation of this book will be of immense help to students and researchers who want to go deeper into this subject. So will be the table showing "Expanded System of Conservation area categories".

S. THEODORE BASKARAN

People, Parks and Wildlife. Towards Coexistence, Vasant Saberwal, Mahesh Rangarajan and Ashish Kothari, 2001, Tracts of the Times, 14, Orient Longman, paperback, Rs. 150.

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