Indian Wildlife Club Forum

"Part of the problem arises from the fact that we do not have a system of “green accounting”. Economists estimate GDP which is gross domestic product as a broad measure of national income and also estimate NDP which is net domestic product which accounts for the use of physical capital. But as yet, we have no generally accepted system to convert Gross Domestic Product into Green Domestic Product that would reflect the use up of precious depletable natural resources in the process of generating national income. Many years ago, the noted Indian environmentalist Anil Agarwal had advocated the concept of a Gross Nature Product to replace the usually estimated Gross National Product................

 .........Economists all over the world have been at work for quite some time on developing a robust system of green national accounting but we are not there as yet. Ideally, if we can report both Gross Domestic Product and Green Domestic Product, we will get a better picture of the trade-offs involved in the process of economic growth. Alternatively, as some economist have argued, we need alternative indicators to measure true welfare improvement, as Green GDP is not be the best indicator of sustainability or future increases in consumption or welfare – indicators such as “Genuine Savings/Investment”, and “Genuine Wealth Per Capita” are being developed as alternatives. We don’t need precise numbers. Even a broad-brush estimate will be a huge step forward to give practical meaning to the concept of “sustainable development” which all of us swear by in theory.

Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta at Cambridge University has calculated that the “genuine” domestic investment rate in India is around 2.3 percentage points lower than the normally reckoned domestic investment rate for the period 1970-2001 after taking into account environmental costs and both calculated as a proportion of GDP. He goes on to show that as against the estimated growth rate of India’s per capita GDP of 2.96% per year during this period, the growth rate of per capita genuine wealth after taking into account environmental costs works out to 0.31% per year."

Read full speech by Jairam Ramesh,
Minister of State (Independent Charge), Environment and Forests, Government of India at the link

http://tinyurl.com/5vg8ykg

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http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3232:jairam-ramesh-on-environment-and-development&catid=110:home-page

"Scientists have developed the first mobile app to identify plants by simply photographing a leaf. The free iPhone and iPad app, called Leafsnap, instantly searches a growing library of leaf images amassed by the Smithsonian Institution. In seconds, it returns a likely species name, high-resolution photographs and information on the tree's flowers, fruit, seeds and bark. ...
Leafsnap debuted in May, covering all the trees in New York's Central Park and Washington's Rock Creek Park. It has been downloaded more than 150,000 times in the first month, and its creators expect it to continue to grow as it expands to Android phones.

Smithsonian research botanist John Kress, who created the app with engineers from Columbia University and the University of Maryland, said it was originally conceived in 2003 as a high-tech aid for scientists to discover new species in unknown habitats. The project evolved, though, with the emergence of smartphones to become a new way for citizens to contribute to research.
..Leafsnap cost about $2.5 million to develop, funded primarily by a grant from the National Science Foundation. It will cost another $1 million to expand it within the next 18 months to cover all the trees of the United States, involving about 800 species.

Full Story on - San Jose Mercury News

"Do Elephants View Humans As Direct Threats?
We are constantly learning more about how intelligent elephants are, about their incredible memory, their tight family structure, and their intricate language. In fact, just a couple days ago we learned about a study showing how very alike humans and elephants are. Considering that this species is always surprising us with their smarts, the conflict between elephants and humans may go even deeper than habitat loss. Gay Bradshaw, an elephant behavior expert, tells Live Science that with humans killing elephants, the aggression could be stemming from this violent interaction.

Bradshaw says elephants are simply reacting as people would when under siege. People are shooting, spearing, poisoning the big animals: "From a psychologist's perspective, that's trauma. If you look at elephants and people, that's the same thing we see with people under siege and genocide."

Bradshaw likens the conflict between humans and elephants to colonialism, with the people taking over the elephants' indigenous culture, and with "elephants fighting to keep their culture and their society as they are pushed into smaller places and killed outright."

It's easy to brush this theory off, saying that Bradshaw is anthropomorphizing elephants and that attacks such as what occurred in Mysore is the result of four males getting separated from the herd and lost in the scary streets of a strange city. However, if we pause for a moment and consider the amazing things we know about elephants, the idea that wild elephants view humans as a direct threat more than ever isn't such a stretch."

Read full article at 

(This blog was posted by 'tarientree' on 11 Oct 2010 15:11 in the discussion forum of 'connecttoearth')

I am living in a well developed country and I think most of you, as you are having access to internet, do as well. We can think about protecting areas and wish there are more such all over the globe. But do we really know and can we even comprehend, how it is, when there is war in the country? Or if we would be so poor, that we must get our food out of the bush? I read about Africa and national parks there. Nationalvparks in countries in war are sometimes almost empty of game, because people go hunting for their food supply. Parkbrangers get killed or corrupted. I do not mean the ivory or trophy hunters, allthough they are a major problem as well. If they would have a better perspective, they would do otherwise.

I think, protecting nature habitats is only effectively achievable, if the people around and in this area have everything to live and therefore can be made sensible for sustainable handling of their land through education. But even this is very hard to achieve, because the well developed countries (Europe, USA, meanwhile parts of China, etc.) take their resources where ever they can get them - and this would be in the underdeveloped countries. The people there get nothing than total nature destruction and health problems, they do not see a cent the incredible earnings the foreigners get.

The mentality of rich and well developed countries like USA can best be seen in Alaska. A national park should be a strongly protected area, right? But oil drilling is allowed! So what is this protected area for then? It is only valid as long it does not concur with capital interests, this means, if the area has no resources or is uneconomic, only then it can be well protected.

So how can we effectively protect nature? The answer is wide spread and not achievable in short-term, if even ever:

* Leaving fossile energy beyond and invest in renewable energy, especially in "free" solar energy so that destroying natural habitats and exploiting of Third World countries is no longer economically of any interest..

    * Elect politicians with natures interest and not economic interest (this means, if they promise you work and good development, it is pure economical thinking). So if you are egoistic (which is natural) you would first choose your own convenience and only then followed by nature preservation, right?

    * Sensible consumption behaviour (organic, MSC, FSC, etc.)
    * Stop rich countries exploitation in countries, where the population is poor and only a very view are rich through sale of their resources (China, USA, Europe, Russia --> Africa, Eastern Europe, South-America)
    * Why need gold and diamonds on your neck or arm? For status? Get rid of this thinking - it is only a material, which makes other people rich, when you buy it.
    * Ask where your sorted out computer, TV or mobile-phone is recycled or trashed. (Does it end up in Africa to be pulled apart for gold and copper by children?)

There is so much more which would be necessary, but most of it would mean, that global economy and globalization need to be completely renewed. The current behaviour of mankind means complete destruction of nature and leaving some small isles of protected areas for a while.

.............very high amounts of rain, snowmelt, or both lead to floods. All the land that drains downhill into rivers—or into the streams and tributaries that eventually join the river—is called a watershed. When that watershed receives a lot of rain, the river will rise higher than its banks and spread out into the floodplain, which is the name for low lying areas along a river.

But what most people don’t realize is that floods are not some departure from the way a river is “supposed” to behave – witness the common description in the press of a river “bursting from its banks” during a flood, like a convict breaking out of jail. The river and floodplain are actually one single highway for moving water downstream (and not just water, but also sediment, which is why the Missouri River is nicknamed the “Big Muddy.”) It’s just that the floodplain part of this highway is dry much or most of the time...............

....on average, natural rivers will spread out onto their floodplains anywhere from once a year to once every 3 years....Floodplains themselves are part of the solution............
Strategic designation of such floodways, with policies that compensate people who live within them, can be critical to reducing the damage of massive floods. We also need to make these floodways more “flood-proof.” For example, there may be ways to develop crops that are more tolerant of floodwater. ......Read more at

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/riverslakes/why-rivers-flood-andhow-to-reduce-risk.xml

or at

http://tinyurl.com/4y6as9s
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"Man-animal (anthropogenic) conflict in India is taking a heavy toll on habitat

and thereby the survival of wildlife. Habitat fragmentation is leading to

isolation of animals, inbreeding, and causing local extinction of such

species. If wildlife are restricted in their movements and in their sociology

(mating patterns and territoriality) it will lead to inbreeding, further

weakening the genetic pool. This applies to all endangered birds, reptiles,

insects, and mammals.

In early 2010 there was an official alert that 1000 tigers were reduced to

skin and bone since the last census of 2008. The 2008 census said there

1411 tigers remaining. Only 50 percent are females. Of these there are

many which are old and frail, and are not breeding any more. Many other

males are of the same bloodline so mating is impossible. Genetic

inbreeding amongst felines is one of the greatest threats to tiger numbers.

Taking all this into account, only 1/3rd of the 1000 odd tiger population in

India are fit to breed."-Malini Shankar

Read More at

http://www.indiatogether.org/2011/feb/env-manimal.htm