The DEATH of Indian Forests.
The discourse on forest protection has been on a decline since the past few years. It was always a topic limited to a niche class in urban India, even in the early 2000s when I was working with Keystone Foundation, the more I worked within the NGO system, the more I realized that really very few are interested in protecting the forests.
But what has gone down the drain is that in these 15 years, whatever meager talk of forests that one would come across in newspapers or TV with notable exceptions like the Aircel-Save the Tiger Campaign has reduced drastically. People are doing a lot of good work but good news does not seem to travel across to the public. While on the other hand, bad news is suppressed and does not evoke any reaction among people at large.
Why is it so - I may not be able to judge the answers in this lifetime but what is for sure is that forests have been clearly defined as an obstacle to development and is seen as an antagonist to the forward looking urban elite. Also, people who have the capacity to bring about a change in cities - clearly see the forest as a recreational unit - to be used on weekends. They are intent to see the forests stripped of is essentials and only focus on the large mammals, almost as if forests need tigers and not tigers needing forests.
The views of communities living near forest is almost always neglected and even if a movement develops in those regions, they are usually suppressed violently. Once conspiracy theory clearly states the large contingent of para-military in Chattisgarh is there to merely facilitate big business for ease of work.
But what has got my goat in the past decade and a half is coin with two sides. On the one hand, the high priests of wildlife and forest conservation have been exposed time and again to be be big ego bastards who care a lot about their next foreign trip to Sweden and occasionally also about the forests and on the other hand - the large public who gave grown big seeing hardly any forest does not seem to be interested in any discourse regarding protection of the forests - something the government knows only too well. So, a news of the destruction of the Narmada forests is immediately challenged by dataloads of the benefits of canals-upon-canals providing life to millions. So, the public the cares a fuck about Narmada ma and plans to set up the next big swimming pool in parched Gujarat. The sarkar merely taps into this sentiment.
All in all - we are in for some big shit in the next couple of decades. And I do not have the gumption to even start thinking about what's happening in Brazil.
But what has gone down the drain is that in these 15 years, whatever meager talk of forests that one would come across in newspapers or TV with notable exceptions like the Aircel-Save the Tiger Campaign has reduced drastically. People are doing a lot of good work but good news does not seem to travel across to the public. While on the other hand, bad news is suppressed and does not evoke any reaction among people at large.
Why is it so - I may not be able to judge the answers in this lifetime but what is for sure is that forests have been clearly defined as an obstacle to development and is seen as an antagonist to the forward looking urban elite. Also, people who have the capacity to bring about a change in cities - clearly see the forest as a recreational unit - to be used on weekends. They are intent to see the forests stripped of is essentials and only focus on the large mammals, almost as if forests need tigers and not tigers needing forests.
The views of communities living near forest is almost always neglected and even if a movement develops in those regions, they are usually suppressed violently. Once conspiracy theory clearly states the large contingent of para-military in Chattisgarh is there to merely facilitate big business for ease of work.
But what has got my goat in the past decade and a half is coin with two sides. On the one hand, the high priests of wildlife and forest conservation have been exposed time and again to be be big ego bastards who care a lot about their next foreign trip to Sweden and occasionally also about the forests and on the other hand - the large public who gave grown big seeing hardly any forest does not seem to be interested in any discourse regarding protection of the forests - something the government knows only too well. So, a news of the destruction of the Narmada forests is immediately challenged by dataloads of the benefits of canals-upon-canals providing life to millions. So, the public the cares a fuck about Narmada ma and plans to set up the next big swimming pool in parched Gujarat. The sarkar merely taps into this sentiment.
All in all - we are in for some big shit in the next couple of decades. And I do not have the gumption to even start thinking about what's happening in Brazil.
