A jewel crafted by nature
G. Ananthakrishnan
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About a wildlife haven and a people determined to pass this living heritage on to generations unborn
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THE KAZIRANGA INHERITANCE: Ranjit Barthakur, Bittu Sahgal; Pub. by Sanctuary Asia, 602, Market Chambers V, Nariman Point, Mumbai-400021. Price not mentioned.
THE KAZIRANGA INHERITANCE: Ranjit Barthakur, Bittu Sahgal; Pub. by Sanctuary Asia, 602, Market Chambers V, Nariman Point, Mumbai-400021. Price not mentioned.
Just how the last remaining natural spaces in the country should be preserved is now the theme of a polarising debate in the conservation community. Science-based conservation advocates find themselves in a confrontational situation with activists who believe animals and humans can co-exist in a wild setting. There is little doubt, however, about where Bittu Sahgal, the founder-editor of Sanctuary magazine comes from when he makes an impassioned plea to preserve a precious piece of the wilderness in The Kaziranga Inheritance, a book that is a tribute to a famous reserve.
He and lead author Ranjit Barthakur have documented the uniqueness of Kaziranga and a dedicated group of photographers have enlivened their writings with handsome full-page colour plates. This is more an evocative journey through a small fragment of a once-rich past where the one-horned rhinoceros, the tiger and a host of other animal and bird species have miraculously survived over the decades.
Visual narrative
A book such as this one, sweeping across the panorama of life in Kaziranga, must naturally provide a visual narrative that is as rich as the landscape — and it does not disappoint, though no one can be blamed for asking for more. After all, the National Park has recorded 505 species of birds, some 100 of them migrants, and that is a breathtaking tally for an ornithologist in a single reserve. There are also 440 species of plants here. Figuring on the long list of birds, reproduced in the book, are the beautiful Bengal Florican and the Oriental Pied Hornbill. The history of this area takes the reader back in time to the early part of the 20th Century and the first attempts at securing a future for the rhinoceros. It all began with the strenuous efforts of J.C.Arbuthnott, the Officiating Commissioner of the Assam Valley Districts, to get the chief commissioner to announce a ban on hunting and to protect three distinctly well-endowed areas as reserved forest; in 1916, Kaziranga became a game sanctuary. That this was achieved with little additional persuasion in a province where the lucrative tea industry had already taken root should provide a sobering perspective to present-day policymakers and bureaucrats at the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Global showpiece
Kaziranga is a global showpiece, a World Heritage Site. It seeks to provide more space today for its megafauna — the rhinos, elephants and tigers — to cross over to safe territory during the monsoon and floods that move south. The animals are driven by the waters to seek safety on higher ground, passing through Haldhibari in the Karbi Anglong Hills and the Panbari and Kachanjhuri Reserved Forests. The crossing is a terrifying ordeal for the protected denizens of the Park: in 1998, some 600 animals drowned. Manmade tragedy also strikes many others who die each year on National Highway 37 (on the southern side of the National Park) including tigers, after being hit by automobiles.
Bittu Sahgal and his colleagues give vent to their anguish in the book in some detail, lamenting the weak responses to some of the challenges that Kaziranga and indeed all protected areas face. The overall thread that runs through this large-format volume, however, is one of celebration, expressing great joy at the survival of the national park and the need to look to the future. The tough reputation of the Park in dealing with poachers, in contrast to most other protected areas where armed patrolling is woefully inadequate, would seem adequate reason for jubilation. It became illegal to hunt in Kaziranga as early as 1908, as the authors find from official records, and a particularly effective Chief Conservator, A.J.W.Milroy (who had already made a name for himself by reducing the trauma involved in capture of elephants) took on poaching gangs with good results. Decades later, Kaziranga tries to maintain its traditionally unforgiving approach to poaching, with a great deal of help from the citizen sector.
The book tracks two key conservation issues that form part of the current national debate: greater use of science to help protected areas regenerate and the role of communities in helping these wild places survive. One of the leading investigators in the field, Dr.K.Ullas Karanth has contributed a chapter, `The Science of Conservation' dealing with the effectiveness of camera traps to sample tiger populations. It would be of interest to wildlife watchers that Kaziranga has higher tiger densities compared to most other reserves. `The Human Factor', a chapter analysing the impact of a growing human population that is part of a consuming economy on three sides of the National Park raises the contradictions that mark official policy.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, in his foreword, expressed support to the National Park, acknowledging its timeless value. Congress (I) president Sonia Gandhi is even more forthright in a note published in the book, expressing worry at the "greed of city dwellers increasingly feeding off the forests" and commending the "far-sighted, stringent and successfully enforced conservation measures" in Kaziranga. If such unequivocal policy support to science is sustained, the Ministry of Environment and Forests can be persuaded to fulfil its mandate to protect not merely Kaziranga but all key habitats in the country. Many more such celebratory works can then document the beauty of the land and its wondrous creatures.
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