The besieged sanctuary

Wildlife Institute of India wields great authority. It must exercise it with care. The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has effectively paved the way for at least two mega hydel power projects in one of India’s richest biodiverse zones.

In December 2012, villagers of the Idu Mishmi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh spotted three tiger cubs in the Dibang Valley. They reported the sighting immediately to the forest department. A three-year-long study followed and, earlier this month, it revealed the presence of 11 tigers in the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary. Unfortunately for them as well as other flora and fauna in the region, “development” has come calling, meaning they might soon have no place to call home.

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The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has effectively paved the way for at least two mega hydel power projects in one of India’s richest biodiverse zones: The Etalin hydel project to be jointly developed by Jindal Power in Dibang Valley district and the Arunachal government and the Lower Demwe hydel project in Lohit district.

The Demwe project is dangerously close to the Kamlang Wildlife Sanctuary and environmentalists have already voiced fears about the adverse impact the power plant will have on the flow of the Lohit river. It will also jeopardise the habitat of the Gangetic river dolphin. A 2014 study of the site by Asad Rahmani, director of Bombay Natural History Society, revealed that the project would also end up submerging parts of the Parshuram Kund Medicinal Plant Conservation Area, home to “globally significant medicinal plants”. The Etalin project paints an equally grim picture.

It entails large-scale forest diversion and the felling of approximately 2,80,000 trees, besides impacting 18 villages. Both are instances of what has become a predictable arc of environmental and ecological disruption. In November, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari flagged off several road development works in Chandrapur district, Maharashtra. The Tadoba tiger reserve is located close by and about 100 km of roads will cut through tiger corridors. In Karnataka, in July, the road ministry called for the state’s consent to lift the night-traffic restriction on NH 766 passing through the Bandipur National Park, furthering fears of more roadkills.

In this context, the role of WII assumes great significance. The country’s premier institute on wildlife and forestry, its recommendations often decide if the ministry will grant or deny project clearances. For the Dibang Valley project, the environment ministry modified a recommendation from its Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) to carry out an environment impact assessment.

Taking it further, the WII initiated a study to assess how the project’s wildlife impact can be minimised. In the past, too, the WII has waded into controversy. At a time when, globally, environmental issues are increasingly driving policy, the WII must be more mindful of the responsibility it is vested with.

Source: Indian Express, 20/12/2018

Humans wiped out 60% of wildlife since 1970

Rate Of Species Loss Up 100-1,000 Times From Few Centuries Ago

Unbridled consumption has decimated global wildlife, triggered a mass extinction and exhausted Earth’s capacity to accommodate humanity’s expanding appetites, the conservation group WWF warned on Tuesday. From 1970 to 2014, 60% of all animals with a backbone — fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals — were wiped out by human activity, according to WWF’s “Living Planet” report, based on an ongoing survey of more than 4,000 species spread over 16,700 populations across the globe. “The situation is really bad, and it keeps getting worse,” WWF International director general Marco Lambertini said. “The only good news is that we know exactly what is happening.” For freshwater fauna, the decline in population over the 44 years monitored was a staggering 80%. Regionally, Latin America was hit hardest, seeing a nearly 90% loss of wildlife over the same period. Depending on which of Earth’s lifeforms are included, the current rate of species loss is 100 to 1,000 times higher than only a few hundred years ago, when people began to alter Earth’s chemistry and crowd other creatures out of existence. Wild animals today only account for 4% of mammals on Earth, with humans (36%) and livestock (60%) making up the rest. Ten thousand years ago that ratio was reversed. Back-to-back marine heatwaves have already wiped out up to half of the globe’s shallow-water reefs, which support a quarter of all marine life. Even if humanity manages to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius — mission impossible — coral mortality will likely be 70 to 90%. The onslaught of hunting, shrinking habitat, pollution, illegal trade and climate change — all caused by humans — has been too much to overcome, he said. In looking for answers, conservationists are turning to climate change. “We need a new global deal for nature,” said Lambertini, noting two key ingredients in the 195-nation Paris climate treaty. “One was the realisation that climate change was dangerous for the economy and society, not just polar bears,” he said. Similarly, threatened ecosystem services long taken for granted are worth tens of trillions of dollars every year. “A healthy, sustainable future for all is only possible on a planet where nature thrives,” said Lambertini. AF

Source: Times of India, 31/10/2018

Wildlife study to find focus spots

Jayashree Nandi

New Delhi





Plan To Conserve Vulnerable Aravali Fauna

A study by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) will soon point out “potential“ wildlife areas in the Aravalis in Haryana that require special conservation measures and protection from urbanisation. The Haryana forest department had commissioned WII to carry out a survey to identify vulnerable areas that needed government intervention.The Aravali range ends in Haryana and is, therefore, an ecologically fragile region that is threatened by modernity . Unlike in Rajasthan, which has a number of protected areas, including the Sariska National Park, the wildlife-rich areas of Haryana had never been identified. “The forest department wants to have a document at hand to be able to resist any pressure to change land use,“ said Bilal Habib of the animal ecology and conservation biology department at WII.
The WII team comprising project biologists Anchal Bhasin and Paridhi Jain, along with local villagers, have finished scouting a 30-km area around Damdama lake, Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary and parts of Mewat in the past month or so.They found ample evidence of wildlife, particularly around Damdama lake, including a 2.5-km-long trail of leopard pugmarks. They also noticed hyena pugmarks and some unidentified pugmarks that could be of the Indian fox.
The two field biologists and the villagers are currently conducting carnivore surveys based on pugmarks, scat and direct sightings as well as an ungulate survey based on the lie-transect method. Bhasin and Jain and their associates, such as Sunil Harsana, a wildlife activist and resident of Roz Ka Gujjar, comb the forest areas of Haryana every day from 6 am to 7 pm.
“We knew that there was rich wildlife in these regions,“ said Harsana. “The WII study will officially put this on record.“ Apart from large carnivores like leopards and hyenas, the surveyors have seen jack als, jungle cats, honey badgers and pugmarks of animals that are yet to be identified.
Despite the presence of tigers in the Rajasthan Aravalis, the WII team isn't quite hopeful of finding the big cats on the Haryana side because the habitat is quite degraded. “There is too much human presence and disturbance for tigers to be living here. Tigers also don't prefer undulating terrain as habitats,“ explained Bhasin.She said that if it could be confirmed that the Indian fox could indeed be found here, it would be an important discovery .Indicators of leopard presence are, of course, the most important discovery because it means there are many other smal ler animals living there on which the spotted cats prey .
The team will submit its initial report in a couple of months after which camera trappings will begin to corroborate the findings.
Local activists are looking forward to the WII report because there is immense pressure from the real estate sector to start constructions close to Damdama. “ Around 5,000 acres of the lake's catchment area are already privatized. There will soon be pressure to allow building of residential apartments,“ worries Colonel SS Oberoi, a resident of the area. He is hopeful, however, that the WII survey will thwart such designs.

Source: Times of India, 5-02-2016

Aggressive wildlife conservation is the need of the hour

India’s wildlife is once again caught in the crosshairs.

This was borne out by two reports that appeared in the media last week.

According to the National Tiger Protection Authority and Traffic India, an NGO that works globally on trade in wild animals and plants, India has lost 41 tigers in the first seven months of this year and only seven of those died of natural causes.

Another report stated that investigators in Kerala have found that poachers had killed more than 20 elephants in the last 10 months, and the toll in the southern region of the country in the past two years could be 100. The main reason for deaths in both cases is poaching.

According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), until now, habitat loss was thought to be the largest single threat to the future of tigers.

But now it has been established that the trade in tiger bones, destined for use in oriental medicine outside India’s borders, is posing an even larger threat.

After decimating their own sources, Far Eastern traditional medicine manufacturers are now targeting India for their supply of tiger bones.

But poaching cannot happen without the help of the ‘chinks’ in the forests department’s armour or without the connivance of people who stay in and around the forests, who are often not integrated into the conservation efforts.

As far as elephants are concerned, the WPSI has recorded the loss of over 121 elephants due to poaching between 2008 and 2011.

During this same period, a further 50 wild elephants died in road and train accidents and a shocking 111 elephants died from electrocution.

But in the case of elephants too poaching remains the major cause of death for wild elephants.

If poaching is one aspect of the conservation challenge, the other side of the story is the government’s aggressive focus on growth that threatens endangered animals and the environment.

This is apparent in the way it is razing forests, giving green signals to dams and pushing industrialisation.

In fact, funding for the environment ministry in the 2015 budget has been cut by 25% and support for tiger protection by 15%.

Those who believe growth is the final target of civilisation must remember that by promoting conservation, we not only ensure our own survival, but also the diversity of the ecosystem.

Partners in conservation

That wildlife conservation efforts cannot succeed in the long term without the proactive involvement of local communities living in and around forest areas has been a well-established fact. The latest lion census conducted in Gujarat reaffirms this. The exercise has shown a 27 per cent rise in the feline’s numbers, which now stand at 523, compared to 411 in 2010. Forest officials acknowledge that this conservation success story would not have come about without support from the Maldharis, a nomadic tribe of cattle-rearers, and also farmers living in the vicinity of the Gir National Park. Lion territory in Gujarat spans some 22,000 sq km across four districts — Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Amreli and Gir-Somnath. This covers 2,600 villages with an approximate population of 7,00,000. Lions now frequent more villages than in the past, with about 167 of them found roaming outside the protected forest area, creating hardly any conflict situations. The lions have actually helped control the population not only of nilgai, its principal source of food, but also of wild boars, which frequently destroy standing crops. Thus, they have benefited the local communities. These communities have reciprocated by protecting the animals from poachers, resisting retaliation when lions prey on cattle, and even building parapet walls around farm-wells to minimise the accidental death of lions that may fall into them.

Although humans and animals have coexisted for ages, the story has not always had a happy ending. Challenges posed by human casualties, and damage to crops, buildings and so on from wildlife intrusions have led one group of conservationists to argue that villagers residing in forest areas ought to be sent out. But another group insists that such a move will result in the loss of goodwill of local communities, impeding conservation efforts. The question is how goodwill could be generated when fear of the animal itself looms large. In Gir, it has become possible to inculcate a sense of pride and ownership among local communities regarding the animal. They share a virtual spiritual bond with the lion. Down south in Valparai, Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, there has been a gradual decline in human fatalities caused by wild elephants after early-warning systems that use text messages and flash light alerts were deployed with help from forest-dwellers within a 2-km radius of herd locations. The Nature Conservation Foundation that has been working on this has found that often it is lack of awareness about the animal’s presence that results in casualties. When the 2006 Forest Rights Act upheld the forest-dwellers’ traditional right to land, conservationists resisted it over concerns of habitat fragmentation. But as testimonies from Gir and elsewhere demonstrate, making local communities active partners can create a win-win situation on the conservation front.

Keywords: wildlife conservation, Gir National Park, Lion territory in Gujarat, Human-animal conflict, Nature Conservation Foundation

Feb 25 2015 : The Times of India (Delhi) India's tiger census method flawed, says Oxford study Kounteya Sinha & Amit Bhattacharya LondonNew Delhi: TNN   Experts Hit Back, Say Univ’s Research Poorly Designed Reigniting the debate over India’s tiger census, which has shown a 30% rise in the big cat’s population in four years, a British-Indian team of scientists has said the exercise mostly likely suffers from a measuring error — a finding rebuffed by experts involved in the census exercise.At the heart of the row is the ‘index calibration model’ which measures animal numbers when they can’t all be seen, using data from camera-traps, radio-collars etc. The technique is commonly used in the census of tigers and other rare wildlife across the world. In the study, published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, scientists from the University of Oxford, Indian Statistical Institute and Wildlife Conservation Society brought out inherent shortcomings in the model and said it could produce inaccurate results. However, experts involved in India’s tiger census said the study was poorly designed and the datasets used to develop the theoretical model suffered from low reliability. “It is not surprising that they haven’t found a strong relationship of tiger density with tiger signs or any other variable for that matter. No amount of statistical sophistication can compensate for poor study design,” said Yadvendra D Jhala and Qamar Qureshi from Wildlife Institute of India, in an email response. Both experts are principal investigators of the estimation exercise. Index-calibration relies on measuring animal numbers accurately in a relatively small region using relia ble, intensive and expensive methods (such as camera trapping) and then relating this measure to a more easily obtained, inexpensive indicator by means of calibration. The calibrated index is then used to extrapolate actual animal numbers over larger regions. To investigate index-calibration, the study team created a mathematical model describing the approach and then tested its efficiency using different values, even attempting to derive tiger numbers from fieldwork data. Under most conditions, the model was shown to lose its efficiency and power to predict.