Bandipur National Park, Karnataka
" Is opening a national park to the public for trekking purpose is right or wrong? how you r going to identify good and bad people. no doubt that each and everyone must experience the wilderness. but for few penny u r not suppose to allow
tom,.dick and harry in a temple."
-Vinod
" There is nothing wrong with allowing people to look around and appreciate what others have worked so hard to conserve. Yes, there might be a problem with some people who might try to spoil the place
but that is something that can be controlled.
If you are conserving something beautiful for future generations, let them have a look at it and appreciate and understand it right now. Before they grow up not knowing what it is that people like you are fighting for today..."
-Jenny
" Why should we be allowed to wander around an animals natural habitat at will just because we want to or can??"
-Iain..
"If there was a choice, I would have agreed with you But there isn't.Today most of the space on earth, except maybe the Amazon has been taken over by human beings. The only way they can be convinced to not destroy what is still left of the natural habitat of
these animals is to 'show' them the conserved places to create an appreciation of it. People will never appreciate what they cannot see. IMO I certainly do not agree with the 'wander at will' part. I would certainly hope for a little bit of supervision to
be safe(knowing us human beings!)
-Jenny
"To say that most of the space has been taken up on Earth is totally inaccurate. Australia is a massive Country but less than the population of Greater London in England live there.Same again in New Zealand,same again in the U. and in Russia.Vast tracts of
land are uninhabitated. .........
- Iain
"Interesting topic of discussion. Especially since we were one of the first groups that did a trial run of some of these trails, proposed within Bandipur. And I was very impressed with the professionalism,
with which the dept is approaching the entire exercise.
While I am as ardent a conservationist as any of you, my view on the traditional theory of closing off wildlife areas, strongly differs. I truly believe that letting in nature lovers into our wild areas as
well as encouraging professionally run eco development projects, can contribute a lot to conservation in the long run.
Lets be pragmatic here. As long as our wild areas remain un-exposed to the people who are supposed to raise their voices to save them, and as long as they remain cost centres, without any self sustaining
revenue generation mechanism, success will always elude us.
My questions are :
1] Has closing off wild areas ever stopped the bad guys from entering them? NO. It only prevents the good guys. It is by now well understood that wildlife sanctuaries that do not permit even jeep
safaris and are totally cut off, have the highest incidents of poaching and other nefarious activities such as Ganja Cultivation, going on at will, because no knows what is happening in there.
2] What is wrong with properly sensitized, controlled number of groups sharing the joys of the forest? Trekkers who will trudge 15-20 Kms through the forest are not picnickers. They are usually sensitive about silence, littering
etc. In fact, our group & our guards picked up even the faint traces of plastic we saw along the way.
3] India is a poor country, with tremendous pressures on budgets and focus areas. For how long are we going to depend on foreign aid to save our wildlife, when they are actually am immense treasure, and
could be harnessed to save themselves?
While I understand that all of us are very concerned about throwing open the gates to hordes of people, and are keen to immediately rise in arms against such a move, I suggest that we also take a step back
and look at such things from another angle. Whether a middle path is possible, and whether the gains may actually outweigh the losses, for the very wildlife we are trying to protect. If we do that without
prejudice, we may actually come up with some different thoughts?
-Sandeep
"If animals are not allowed to enter our habitat y r we allowed to enter theirs?"
-ARoxruler