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Wildlife conservation needs out of box thinking
MOHAN ALEMBATH
Our wildlife sanctuaries and national parks are slowly becoming islands of conservation amidst teeming masses. Natural resource planning and management is becoming increasingly complex as the burgeoning human population places increasing demands on shrinking resources. Developmental plans are increasingly bringing about fragmentation of once contiguous wildlife habitat. This in the long run does not augur well for conservation. It is time to think out of box and come up wi
th solutions based on reality.
Right now our conservation strategies do not per se provide for the needs of the wildlife around the protected areas. Even though as per law this is mandatory, the local forest officer is saddled with other chores and ipso facto not bothered about wildlife as he comes to grapple with the demands of production forestry.
It is time we gave serious thought to metapopulations while devising conservation strategies. A metapopulation is a collection of relatively isolated, spatially distributed, local populations bound together by occasional dispersal between populations. This very important key provides for recolonisation of populations that may suffer local extinction. Sufficient dispersal among populations ensures that they continue to exist in the face of local extinctions. This calls for shedding some of our outlived conservation manifestos and look at new ways to manage wildlife habitats.
Landscape connectivity becomes a very important component in the new scheme of things. Landscape ecologists define it as the degree to which the structure of a landscape helps or hinders the movement of wildlife species. Landscape fragmentation hinders the free movement of wildlife and increases the chance of extinction.
Voluntary land protection and incentive-based habitat management programmes on private lands should be encouraged. People’s participation is one of the main agendas of the government now. The time is ripe to bring in wildlife conservation in private areas in its fold. Spread of invasive species in high priority natural habitats is an area of concern, where private partnership can play a very effective role. KDHP Tea Company in Munnar is coming out with a wilderness management plan, a first for the corporate sector. Efforts like this need to be encouraged.
Review procedures
Environmental review procedures should be made mandatory for all projects affecting wildlife. Right now once we give clearance to a project that is the end of it. Irreparable damage is done in some cases. Review gives us a chance to go in for ameliorative procedures. Satellite images and geographic information systems can be put to use to observe species and their habitats.
The needs of the local population and those residing inside wildlife sanctuaries also need to be taken care of on a war footing. Packages addressing livelihood concerns should be developed where the residents feel proud of wildlife heritage, and see it as a source of income. Ecotourism sans disturbance to wildlife can be an ideal tool. The recent deaths of lions in Gir are a grim reminder of the need to take care of the needs of villagers around wildlife reserves.
We have to dovetail our present wildlife management plans to areas outside the protected areas and develop appropriate landscape plans if conservation is to be a success in the coming years.
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