https://thewire.in/environment/human-wildlife-conflicts-could-consume-the-forest-department-in-the-long-run
Human-Wildlife Conflict can consume the Forest Department in the long run - Abhijit Dutta and Kunal Sharma
The past year has been one to forget for the wildlife in India. A terrified elephant calf engulfed in a fire-ball was photographed following its equally terrified mother, chased by an angry mob of villagers. ‘Man-eater’ Avni, the tiger, was killed in a cold-blooded, politically motivated operation that involved a controversial sharpshooter, leaving behind her two immature cubs orphaned. The Lalgarh tiger, whom the forest department couldn’t track and capture, and the tiger who supposedly scripted a historic migration from Bandhavgarh to Lalgarh, got killed in the ugliest of fashions - a spear right through his face by a group of villagers who tracked it before the forest department could. The forest department in most states had few answers to the above episodes.
460 leopards died in 2018, mostly due to unnatural, man-made causes, highest in any year till date. 35 elephants died due to electrocution in in the same year. Nearly half of the tigers that died in 2018, were found dead outside protected areas. While the country was celebrating the Wildlife week in October 2018, Gujarat celebrated it in a rather unusual manner - by letting the world know that 23 Gir lions have died due to canine distemper disease, a disease that could have been dealt with efficient precautionary measures. The story of the Great Indian Bustard in 2018 was even more morose, probably hinting at its heartbreaking extinction before 2020. In the shadow of this eternal grief, countless projects were cleared by the “regulating” agencies, paving the way for the destruction of the Aarey forests and mangrove sanctuary in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
In the shadow of providing support to indigenous communities, who have been custodians of forests since ancient times, land was snatched from right beneath their feet in Hasdeo Arand for setting up a coal mine in one of the last pristine forests left in India. In the shadow of good forest governance, from 2012 to 2017, 162 forest rangers had to lose their lives guarding the forests of India, three times more than second placed Democratic Republic of Congo.
Reports of human wildlife conflict has been spiralling out of control and as has been the case of media coverage on biodiversity related issues, there has been negligible focus on the extreme human reactions to wildlife straying into populated areas. But small snatches of news that filters out from the hinterlands of India shows a disturbing trend. Visuals of leopards being burnt at stakes or elephants being bombed in the own forests are also accompanied by increasing incidents of arson against the forest department. Most reportage almost synonymously puts the onus of extreme conflict on a forest department official who is invariably photographed sizing up against hordes of stick yielding mobs.
However, this phenomenon is not the result of an overnight outburst of emotions. Since the past 20-25 years and possibly from the time of independence, the forest department has not been popular among the masses. From implementing Joint Forest Management to the interpretation of the Forest Rights Act, communities have accused the department of rampant corruption, oppression and denial of basic rights. On the other hand, the department has always considered the forest and the wildlife as its property. Since time immemorial, a plethora of schemes meant for the forest-fringe population have not managed to deliver a fraction of their intended agenda, leaving rural communities dissatisfied.
But the fact remains that the despite overwhelming odds, innumerable officials within the department have gone out of their way to preserve our forests. Bureaucratically, the department is loathed by officials of other arms of the government who see it as an obstruction to their own development related work. Bravely, in spite of frequent setbacks, the forest department has steadfastly stood against diversion of forest land, poaching, encroachment and fragmentation and will go down in history as one of the key reasons for saving whatever is left of India’s biodiversity.
This is a double edged and highly serrated sword where officials of the forest department fight for the forest at the risk of their own lives and at the same time works tirelessly and perhaps involuntarily to alienate communities who are integral to the forest ecosystem. This has led to feeding enemies on both the sides. In the villages, irate mobs see each transgression by the unfortunate tiger as an act of revenge against the forest department and the latent anger is fueled into revenge killings, forest fires and arson. In other circles, the department is increasingly vilified for inadept crisis management that is lapped by the media as best manifested by the incident of Avni’s murder where the national media pushed the state forest department into a corner. It is surprising, but intellectuals talk of ‘Human-wildlife conflict’ now, more than any time before, as another demonstration of inept bureaucracy although it has been a constant management issue as India began its march towards progress after independence.
As the department goes into a huddle after each rescue attempt, showing a lack of willingness to engage with communities and keeps losing public support, it compounds the cascading negative impacts of ‘Human-wildlife interaction’. It is high time that we realize, from recent events in the Indian biodiversity sphere, that this oft neglected issue of ‘Human-wildlife conflict’ is responsible for increasing incidents of man-made forest fires, deforestation, resettlement retaliation like in Melghat, regular road-kills, aggressive offspring, stressed wild animals and many more. Not only does the department need to actively chalk down strategies for managing conflict situations in the future but they should also be seen to actively engage with stakeholders to bring down such incidences.
The onus lies on the department to take up active mitigation measures to reduce such incidences and come up with universally applicable protocols while managing volatile theaters of conflict. The thorn around paying cattle-kill compensation needs to be swiftly addressed. Already, a successful model exists in and around Bandipur Tiger Reserve where the Mariamma Charitable Trust preempts an outburst of anger by disbursing aid money within a few hours of each kill. Above all, an oft repeated suggestion has been to carefully sift through the lower rungs of the department and appoint culturally sensitive officials who have demonstrated that they work in the service out of a sense of heightened duty and not merely because wildlife postings are considered plum opportunities in the current setup.
The past year has been one to forget for the wildlife in India. A terrified elephant calf engulfed in a fire-ball was photographed following its equally terrified mother, chased by an angry mob of villagers. ‘Man-eater’ Avni, the tiger, was killed in a cold-blooded, politically motivated operation that involved a controversial sharpshooter, leaving behind her two immature cubs orphaned. The Lalgarh tiger, whom the forest department couldn’t track and capture, and the tiger who supposedly scripted a historic migration from Bandhavgarh to Lalgarh, got killed in the ugliest of fashions - a spear right through his face by a group of villagers who tracked it before the forest department could. The forest department in most states had few answers to the above episodes.
460 leopards died in 2018, mostly due to unnatural, man-made causes, highest in any year till date. 35 elephants died due to electrocution in in the same year. Nearly half of the tigers that died in 2018, were found dead outside protected areas. While the country was celebrating the Wildlife week in October 2018, Gujarat celebrated it in a rather unusual manner - by letting the world know that 23 Gir lions have died due to canine distemper disease, a disease that could have been dealt with efficient precautionary measures. The story of the Great Indian Bustard in 2018 was even more morose, probably hinting at its heartbreaking extinction before 2020. In the shadow of this eternal grief, countless projects were cleared by the “regulating” agencies, paving the way for the destruction of the Aarey forests and mangrove sanctuary in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
In the shadow of providing support to indigenous communities, who have been custodians of forests since ancient times, land was snatched from right beneath their feet in Hasdeo Arand for setting up a coal mine in one of the last pristine forests left in India. In the shadow of good forest governance, from 2012 to 2017, 162 forest rangers had to lose their lives guarding the forests of India, three times more than second placed Democratic Republic of Congo.
Reports of human wildlife conflict has been spiralling out of control and as has been the case of media coverage on biodiversity related issues, there has been negligible focus on the extreme human reactions to wildlife straying into populated areas. But small snatches of news that filters out from the hinterlands of India shows a disturbing trend. Visuals of leopards being burnt at stakes or elephants being bombed in the own forests are also accompanied by increasing incidents of arson against the forest department. Most reportage almost synonymously puts the onus of extreme conflict on a forest department official who is invariably photographed sizing up against hordes of stick yielding mobs.
However, this phenomenon is not the result of an overnight outburst of emotions. Since the past 20-25 years and possibly from the time of independence, the forest department has not been popular among the masses. From implementing Joint Forest Management to the interpretation of the Forest Rights Act, communities have accused the department of rampant corruption, oppression and denial of basic rights. On the other hand, the department has always considered the forest and the wildlife as its property. Since time immemorial, a plethora of schemes meant for the forest-fringe population have not managed to deliver a fraction of their intended agenda, leaving rural communities dissatisfied.
But the fact remains that the despite overwhelming odds, innumerable officials within the department have gone out of their way to preserve our forests. Bureaucratically, the department is loathed by officials of other arms of the government who see it as an obstruction to their own development related work. Bravely, in spite of frequent setbacks, the forest department has steadfastly stood against diversion of forest land, poaching, encroachment and fragmentation and will go down in history as one of the key reasons for saving whatever is left of India’s biodiversity.
This is a double edged and highly serrated sword where officials of the forest department fight for the forest at the risk of their own lives and at the same time works tirelessly and perhaps involuntarily to alienate communities who are integral to the forest ecosystem. This has led to feeding enemies on both the sides. In the villages, irate mobs see each transgression by the unfortunate tiger as an act of revenge against the forest department and the latent anger is fueled into revenge killings, forest fires and arson. In other circles, the department is increasingly vilified for inadept crisis management that is lapped by the media as best manifested by the incident of Avni’s murder where the national media pushed the state forest department into a corner. It is surprising, but intellectuals talk of ‘Human-wildlife conflict’ now, more than any time before, as another demonstration of inept bureaucracy although it has been a constant management issue as India began its march towards progress after independence.
As the department goes into a huddle after each rescue attempt, showing a lack of willingness to engage with communities and keeps losing public support, it compounds the cascading negative impacts of ‘Human-wildlife interaction’. It is high time that we realize, from recent events in the Indian biodiversity sphere, that this oft neglected issue of ‘Human-wildlife conflict’ is responsible for increasing incidents of man-made forest fires, deforestation, resettlement retaliation like in Melghat, regular road-kills, aggressive offspring, stressed wild animals and many more. Not only does the department need to actively chalk down strategies for managing conflict situations in the future but they should also be seen to actively engage with stakeholders to bring down such incidences.
The onus lies on the department to take up active mitigation measures to reduce such incidences and come up with universally applicable protocols while managing volatile theaters of conflict. The thorn around paying cattle-kill compensation needs to be swiftly addressed. Already, a successful model exists in and around Bandipur Tiger Reserve where the Mariamma Charitable Trust preempts an outburst of anger by disbursing aid money within a few hours of each kill. Above all, an oft repeated suggestion has been to carefully sift through the lower rungs of the department and appoint culturally sensitive officials who have demonstrated that they work in the service out of a sense of heightened duty and not merely because wildlife postings are considered plum opportunities in the current setup.
