Indians For Guns

Dr. Pabla's 2 articles on conservation have been now uploaded as PDF files. I tried to upload them to the knowledge base as "articles" but as Inder & Mack The Knife pointed out, the system was not picking up the HTML tags for the tables properly - producing gibberish instead

To download them, one must be a member - one more reason why I tried to add them to the knowledge base initially, they would have been viewable by all.

Thank you Mack The Knife for interfacing with Dr. Pabla and getting his permission to publish these excellent articles at IFG. Anyone wishing to contact Dr. Pabla is requested to PM Mack The Knife.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

Thanks Abhijeet but the credit goes to Sat.

Mack The Knife

Oh, I'm sorry - since you sent me the mail I didn't realise...

Correction then - Thank you Sat for interfacing with Dr. Pabla and getting his permission to publish these excellent articles at IFG. Anyone wishing to contact Dr. Pabla is requested to PM Sat.



Cheers!
Abhijeet

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shooter wrote:I just realised that this most excellent thread is one of the least viewed

Share on facebook and ask your friends to do the same...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

very informative

very informative
thanks for sharing

Regards
Ram

mundaire wrote: I tried to upload them to the knowledge base as "articles" but as Inder & Mack The Knife pointed out, the system was not picking up the HTML tags for the tables properly - producing gibberish instead

Going OT but, Could you please elucidate the issue so that I can try and find a solution.

From what I can make out, I think the problem is with the HTML entities which can not be directly inserted and properly retrieved from the tables. The best thing to do is to escape the special characters through the mysql_real_escape_string() function along with html_entities() function while inserting and retrieving from the Database. Sorry for going OT, but I think it can be more useful if you can add the articles to the Knowledge Base.

excellent post this. thanks for sharing.

regards
FL

I appreciate Dr.Pabla for his realistic presentation and practical sugeestions. My dream of conservation in reality is taking shape.

thoughts of a real wildlife conservator

This approach may reduce animal numbers destroying crop, but how is it going to deal with growing tiger, leopard poaching in India which is derived by commercial benefits ? This will surely entice people from a particular strata but poaching or illegal hunting will go on as it is being going on in India since ages. It is highly unlikely that it will solve the problem of "empty forest" situation in India.

Moreover, Dr. Pabla, like many other IFS officers, believe in commercial exploitation of our natural resources, because they are trained to do that only, not many are trained or interested in wildlife conservation. We lost all tigers from Panna when Dr. Pabla was the CCF but surprisingly, the forest department blamed the tiger itself for there own extinction. None of them are ready to take any responsibility for the extinction of tigers from panna but they are the first one to pat there backs when reintroduced tigers gave birth in panna.

Frankly speaking, thorough scientific studies are undertaken in countries like south africa, USA, New zealand where hunting is allowed, no such studies have been done in India so saying that population of some animals are exploding in india is misleading.

saying that population of some animals are exploding in india is misleading.

how is this misleading? Dont you see the monkeys that are marauding our cities?

The hunting permit mechanism to promote conservation of wildlife works this way.. As you would know, leaving the job of conservation of Forests and Wildlife in the hands of Government officials and a few individuals and NGO's has not worked in India. Period! It's a question of who will police the police?. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" as the saying goes.. NGO's are controlled by the MOEF and they usually have to 'shape up or ship out' when it comes to saying anything that goes against the diktats of MOEF. As I see it, Forest officials all over India have a 'wink wink nudge nudge' or 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' symbiotic relationship with politicians and unscruplous businessmen to 'Harvest the bounty of our forests be it in the form of forest produce like timber, bamboo, medicinal herbs, etc.. I remember having read somewhere that some forest officials have alledgely been involved with poaching of the Tiger itself. Bringing in private individuals who are sports hunters into this hitherto cozy symbiotic relationship of officials and business men could if done properly throw a spanner in the works of forest officials. Individual sports hunters who have hitherto been dishonourably debarred from the indian conservation game-plan would be charged heavily to persue their sports (in a manner that is sustainable) Such individuals who could afford to persue such a sport in India would most necessarily be rich, literate and aware of his surroundings. He could very well turnout to be the crucial (missing) stake holder in the conservation scenario of India. As they would be directly taxed, they would be the first persons to realize what is going on in the forests and ask the officials "Where is the trophy that I have paid for?"

I had recently commented on a post by a famous indian conservator on facebook I quote : "Actually there is a way, but we are too thick headed to recognize it. Instead of trying to uplift wildlife conservation onto a pedestal and turn it into some kind of unatainable 'Nirvana' we should bring it down to the masses in a way they understand and can relate with. If done correctly they can even profit from it. Dr. HS Pabla in his paper 'Use it or Loose it : THE MANTRA FOR MAN-ANIMAL CO-EXISTENCE’ seems to have hit the nail with practical answers to our problems but Indian conservators wont touch it with a barge pole.. Why?? Is it because we want to put Wildlife Conservation up there on a 'high pedestal' like some kind of sanctimonius religious zealot?"

You want to put conservaton up there like some kind of a religion and follow it piously like a devotee. It dosent work that way! Conservation is nothing without humans and although it feels very selfish, it IS solely for the benifit of man. If it benefits conservation in the longrun by allowing man to benefit directly in the short run in a way that is sustainable, why get so upset about it. I truely believe this is where india has gone wrong.. treating conservation like a religion. Ahimsa and all that...

Thanks Abhijeet.... trying to work out a story idea for HT

Cheers

TC