Indian Wildlife Club Forum

I appreciate the view of Bahar Dutt on the need for support for Community reserves. Moreover, those communities need more appreciation and acknowledgement from the governmental and scientific community.

Often the community forests such as sacred groves are kept for religious values and the rules and regulations governing them might widely vary from community to community. Only a local level management approach involving informed participants mainly from the specific community/communities involved in the conservation only can promot the conservation of community reserves.

Probably the Kalpavriksh's data (mentioned by Bahar Dutt) on various community reserves should be studied thoroughly for making some umbrella rule that should serve only as some sort of a broad guidelines for the management of these reserves at National level.

I read the article by Bahar Dutt at

http://www.indianwildlifeclub.com/AboutUs/OurConcerns/Community-Reserves.aspx

I completely agree with her views on community reserves. Until and unless the government also helps and encourages these local tribes and residents, they will find it difficult in the long-run to protect valuable wildlife and natural resources, given illegal use of these resources.

These local residents must feel that their efforts are not going wasted because then only many more people will want to work for such causes without thinking about the adverse repercussions of legal loopholes on the environment.

I travelled from Delhi to Jhunjhunu(Rajasthan) by road recently. It felt nice to be woken up in the morning by the chirpy sparrows.

I suddenly realised how much I miss them here in Gurgaon. My friends from Delhi tell me sparrows are not seen anymore there as well.

The number of rotting carcasses of dogs and even a camel on the roads made me wonder what happened to our vultures, the scavenger birds provided by nature. Is the loss of biodiversity on a fast track now?

In January 2005, the Delhi Police seized a huge contraband of animal skins which included 60kg of tiger and leopard paws, 3 kg of claws and around 40 bones besides the skins.

Also, in January the forest department has confirmed that Sariska in Rajasthan does not have any tigers any more.

Ranthambhore, our showcase for tigers is suffering a crisis of management because of excessive tourist influx- and the lack of basic facilities to the villagers displaced from the forest.

Can we do something, anything? We are a group of concerned individuals who are part of IndianWildlifeclub.com. We all want to do something. Can we make a difference?

Speaking out, we can generate ideas for helping, for controlling poaching.

Letter I wrote to my sons after our trip in Oct.2004 to Ranthambhore National Park and the Koeldeo Bird Sanctuary, Bharatpur:

 We had a very nice trip to Ranthambhore. But the icing on the cake was granted to us; thanks to the Indian Railways canceling our Delhi bound train after it reached Bharatpur. For once neither of us was unhappy about the cancellation of our train. We got a sneak visit to the bird sanctuary in Bharatpur too and that for a day+.

About Koeldeo Bird Sanctuary, Bhatarpur:

 There were plenty of birds to see though the migratory ones do not turn up till mid November or so. What I found most interesting there was the fact that almost a decade plus back, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) took up a programme for training Rikshaw pullers as Park guides, thus giving them not only dignity and a sense of achievement but also much higher than average income levels of a typical rikshaw puller. Imagine many of these guys have studied up to 11th/12th standard, speak broken English but boy they seem to know their Park and the flora and fauna in it really well.

We had a most enterprising 6ft+ Rajiv Singh, a Sardarji with a dignified mien taking us around and he did a great job. We learn that they went through a year long programme and are now put through a month long refresher course by WWF every year. There are 110 of them. Will write about Ranthambhor National Park some other time Wishing A GREAT NEW YEAR AHEAD FOR ALL IWC MEMBERS