Indians For Guns

Maharashtra wants to clip birds wings
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Eart ... 647838.cms

NEW DELHI: Can Delhi's expanse of 1,483 square kilometre be suddenly reduced to the Lutyens' Zone having an area of just 43 square
kilometres?

The highly endangered Great Indian Bustards face a similar squeeze as the Maharashtra government made a plea before the Supreme Court seeking to reduce their habitat from the present 8,500 sq km to a mere 350sq km.

The Maharashtra government had in 1979 declared an area of the 8,500sq km spread over two districts — Ahmednagar and Solapur — as the Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary with the sole objective of conserving this rare species which is facing extinction.

The largely ground dwelling bird with a long neck and long bare legs which is somewhat similar to a young ostrich is locally known as Maldhok. It now faces the risk of losing more than 95% of its habitat as the Vilasrao Deshmukh government has impressed upon the Supreme Court the dire need for the rationalisation of the sanctuary boundary.

The state told the Forest bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Arijit Pasayat and S H Kapadia that "out of 8,496.44sq km area, only 347.63 km is the effective sanctuary area. Out of the effective sanctuary area, 250.64sq km was forest, 85.72sq km vacant land and 11.27sq km is private land", the state said.

Counsel for the state said: "The rationalisation of the boundary of the sanctuary is to be finally decided based on the recommendation of the committee constituted for the said purpose working under the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF)."

As the state pressed for an early decision, eager to exclude the major portion of the sanctuary to be utilised for non-forest activities, the Bench requested the rationalisation committee under MoEF to take a decision in this regard within four weeks. It has listed the state's application for further hearing after six weeks.

There has been worldwide concern over the protection of the Great Indian Bustard. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that the total population of surviving birds in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka could be as low as 500.

It is well known fact that just as a loss event is a risk factor for depression, similarly impending fear- something is going to happen- is a risk factor for anxiety and hence stress.

Indian govt should stop stressing out animal lovers and conservationists and stop being a hypocrite.
Just declare all the forests to be cut down, kill all the endengared species in one go or sell them to foreign zoos, convert all the national parks into malls and multinational factories, stop spending any money in the budget for forests, conservation and use that money to buy dollar reserves and get a huge commission out of that.
A bit of that money could be spent in making a small memorial to India's past flora and fauna and add to a long list of "we were..../ we had.....". netas coulld give a bhashan on world environmental day, cut ribbon and the memorial could be later be replaced by a blue coloured ambedkar statue.
that would stop menka gandhi howling and wailing as there wont be anything left to protect. all animals lovers would get closure and seek solace in other activities or other countries.

Making the animals and in turn people like us die slow gradual deaths is far too painful.

its ridiculous some of the govt guys probably own property in the said area.