Dr. Pabla's articles on conservation

[Rijo Joseph]

Good one thanks for sharing

[sa_ali]

Excellent article. The best thing about this is that it is backed with scientific data, it is making absolute sense.

I had post something similar when i had read that about lions dying in Gir
http://indiansforguns.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9246

The animals not dying natural deaths, they are dying because of poaching, poisoning and in fighting caused due to the shortage of space and over population.

If we move to licensed hunting, we will be generating more Jobs, specially for the villagers and we know for sure, they know forest and conservation more than people sitting in AC rooms and talking about it.
We know from this forum itself that there many members, who are spending above a lakh amount on going to africa and other places for hunting, so its valuable foreign exhange going outside.
Look at UK, they dont hunt all the wild birds, those pheasants,partridges, quails are farm raised and then released for hunt. Because of the need people have invested money and got to breed in farms, they are released every year on farms, not all are hunted, which thrive on farms as wild birds.

Lets face it, we have to get a balance of commercial and conservation both, with funds only we can have good conservation, we cannot have conservation without money.

We need to look at good conservation programs and adopt them.

I wonder if maneka gandhi has filed PIL against the officer already

[shashankspectral]

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...

More visibility of wild animals is not a criteria of increasing population. It could also mean forest are increasingly becoming degraded (which surely is the case) and not suitable for habitation any more. Indian wilderness suffers terribly from habitat fragmentation and destruction, hence animals venture out, like in the case of blackbuck, leopard or elephant. So, would you kill them for no fault of there own ? Where there is healthy, contiguous forest area, man animal conflict is minimal, but where it is the reverse, it is worse.

I agree conservation should be held in grassroot, the forest dwelling community should be made the stakeholder but allowing "controlled" hunting to benefit the local community needs to be debated upon. I believe a large chunk of capital earned from wildlife tourism should be diverted to such communities, it will serve the same purpose.

A classic example is kuno wildlife sanctuary. I am from sheopur district,which is heavily forested and have visited the place quite often. Even though it looks dense but drive through forest gives the forest a lifeless feeling. The sheopur district is home to mogiya and saharia tribes. They are expert hunters and are allowed to keep guns by FD becoz farmers hire them to kill wild boar and nilgai for crop protection. The irony is, apart from killing nilgai and boar, there is rampant poaching on the part of mogiya who use there licensed weapon freely to make saure kuno is devoid of any wildlife. The situation earlier was so bad that few tigers who left ranthambore to find new territory and entered kuno were surely to be killed by mogiyas. Moreover, the leopards which is so far the commonest big cat in india, is rarely found here, but is found in periphery of the park becoz there it preys on livestock of the tribes.

The catch was,i saw several nilgai and boar on the croplands between gwalior to sheopur then in the forest. It is clear, the forest are not suitable for wildlife anymore becoz they are heavily encroached upon. So its obvious they will move out and look for easy meal which in this case is cropland. I am quite sure that by improving habitat we can actually decrease the man animal conflict.

Between i am not a treehugger or some NGO worker, i am all for sustainable exploitation of resources but for this you should have ample resource which we dont have. First stop illegal hunting of animals before thinking about legal hunting. Both illegal as well as legal hunting will be final nail in the coffin for the wildlife.

[shashankspectral]

The animals not dying natural deaths, they are dying because of poaching, poisoning and in fighting caused due to the shortage of space and over population.

If we move to licensed hunting, we will be generating more Jobs, specially for the villagers and we know for sure, they know forest and conservation more than people sitting in AC rooms and talking about it.

You are talking about an animal which is just 400 in number. We want to increase there number not control it. Moving the excess population to other habitats is a better idea.

Even if we allow licensed hunting i am pretty sure some adventure tourism ventures will hijack it, just like with wildlife tourism.

[jonahpach]

Between i am not a treehugger or some NGO worker, i am all for sustainable exploitation of resources but for this you should have ample resource which we dont have. First stop illegal hunting of animals before thinking about legal hunting. Both illegal as well as legal hunting will be final nail in the coffin for the wildlife.

The 'ample resource' could come from licensed and controlled hunting. Once you have licensed hunting, illegal hunting (poaching) will just go away. This is because poachers cannot just go to any jungle and shoot an animal. They have to have a local guide who knows the jungle like the back of his hand. This local guide is usually just a local villager who frequents the forests or maybe even lives in it. He may not even get paid by the poachers! Legal hunting will put money and sometimes meat in the hands of these forest dwellers (call them tribals if you will) and illegal hunting will be a thing of the past.

[.338 lapua]

A very nice post found it to be very interesting and informative,however I am not sure how the various conservationists and the government agencies would react to it.



Dear shashank I would agree with you on some of your views especially when we talk about empty forests,yes definitely we should firstly work upon improving the habitat of the existing forest area,the main reasons for wild animals leaving forests and then damaging the crops is lack of food in their habitat,during summer months hunters set forests on fire so the the animals like Gaur ,wild boar barking deer feed on the crops in nearby villages in the sahayadris.There is a lack of awareness in the people living besides protected and non protected forests,even the forest dept in many cases in the afforestation projects grow trees like Acacia,Casuarina,Glyricidia in forest area's which is no use to animals as they do not produce any kind of fruits to feed the animal or the bird population instead attract timber smugglers who further exploit the forest.A forest where there is ample amount of food for all species of animals existing in our forests
these animals would certainly avoid the danger of leaving the forest cover to feed themselves in the open. Also the farmers in southern Maharastra are given ample space by the gov for grazing cattle and livestock still these people use forest land to do the same to make things even worse ,so this is where awareness should be spread among the villagers to exploit the space given to them as grazing land (gai raan) in Marathi where various varieties of grass pastures can be grown to suffice the livestock population.

Legalization of hunting can be done if there is sufficient game in the said reserve,and if not can breed these animal's on farms and then let them in to the forests I feel is no rocket science can easily be done if there is an organised involvement of the forest dept and the local populace..also the employment factror will play an important role and if the locals are involved in this they will most cetainly protect thier source of income.If it becomes a reality I am sure it will be a game changer i.e poachers will have a hard time due to increase in the number of forest guards,guides etc..
However this is my personal point of view.

Regard's

Dhiraj

[shashankspectral]

The 'ample resource' could come from licensed and controlled hunting. Once you have licensed hunting, illegal hunting (poaching) will just go away. This is because poachers cannot just go to any jungle and shoot an animal. They have to have a local guide who knows the jungle like the back of his hand. This local guide is usually just a local villager who frequents the forests or maybe even lives in it. He may not even get paid by the poachers! Legal hunting will put money and sometimes meat in the hands of these forest dwellers (call them tribals if you will) and illegal hunting will be a thing of the past.

Surely u dont know poachers modus operandi. The majority of tiger poachers in India, the mogiyas, bawarias, baheliyas and pardis are expert animal trackers and before setting up traps they stay in the forest for several days just to understand the terrain. They rarely rely on locals especially near any famous tiger reserve becoz local are ought to inform the FD. But lets not talk about tigers, becoz legalise tiger hunting is out of question becoz i guess tiger or any other large carnivore is just too royal to be killed like that. It will be an insult to our national animal to be even considered for hunting.

As far as crop raiders like nilgai and boars are considered, transfering there huge population outside PA to empty forest will be an far better option. It is called capacity building in scientific terms to create enough food base for predators like tigers and leopard so that they dont rely on non conventional food source, read human livestock and in some cases humans.....this is done in south africa where big herds of herbivore are continously shifted from one park to another to build capacity of one park. Tiger or lion population is depended on habitat and food availability and u cant increase there number if u cant increase there habitat and food. So even allowing contorlled hunting of carnivore will be disastrous for there population. In Africa, if a male leopard is shot by hunter, some other leopard will takes its place and will eventually kill the cubs of former leopard. The bottom line is, the leopard population will not increase but it will start decreasing after some time. It has been seen on those places in africa where controlled hunting of leopard is allowed.

[shashankspectral]

Legalization of hunting can be done if there is sufficient game in the said reserve,and if not can breed these animal's on farms and then let them in to the forests I feel is no rocket science can easily be done if there is an organised involvement of the forest dept and the local populace..also the employment factror will play an important role and if the locals are involved in this they will most cetainly protect thier source of income.If it becomes a reality I am sure it will be a game changer i.e poachers will have a hard time due to increase in the number of forest guards,guides etc..
However this is my personal point of view.

Legalization of hunting can only be done if there is sufficient game as well as total curb on poaching. A thorough scientific study should be undertaken. Hunting can never be conservation tool. It could control population of a species in certain place but doesn't help in conservation of a species. Thats why i said capacity building of a habitat should be there. In an era where we are talking about inviolate zone for tiger conservation, you just can not let some trigger happy people to enter such inviolate zone. Such inviolate zone are not entirely restricted to tiger reserves. Tiger is a highly mobile animal it travel large swathe of forest to find suitable habitat. U can not restrict tiger to one forest and carry out "legalised" hunting somewhere else which could be developed as potential tiger habitat. Thats why i am not a fan of Mr. Pabla, becoz his approach towards forest is more of exploitation rather then conservation. His action and reaction during tiger crisis in Panna is not somethin to be proud of, read more about Dr. ullas karanth, Dr. krithi karanth, they are eminent wildlife biologist and have done extensive research on hunting practise in india. I guess this is necessary to build a proper mindset on this topic.

[Rajat]

Welcome to IFG shashankspectral ! We have people with diverse opinions and viewpoints here. This is what makes this a unique forum and creates some interesting discussions.

It is good to know your views. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us.

An introduction in the appropriate section will help us know you better.

[jonahpach]

Legalization of hunting can be done if there is sufficient game in the said reserve,and if not can breed these animal's on farms and then let them in to the forests I feel is no rocket science can easily be done if there is an organised involvement of the forest dept and the local populace..also the employment factror will play an important role and if the locals are involved in this they will most cetainly protect thier source of income.If it becomes a reality I am sure it will be a game changer i.e poachers will have a hard time due to increase in the number of forest guards,guides etc..
However this is my personal point of view.

Legalization of hunting can only be done if there is sufficient game as well as total curb on poaching. A thorough scientific study should be undertaken. Hunting can never be conservation tool. It could control population of a species in certain place but doesn't help in conservation of a species. Thats why i said capacity building of a habitat should be there. In an era where we are talking about inviolate zone for tiger conservation, you just can not let some trigger happy people to enter such inviolate zone. Such inviolate zone are not entirely restricted to tiger reserves. Tiger is a highly mobile animal it travel large swathe of forest to find suitable habitat. U can not restrict tiger to one forest and carry out "legalised" hunting somewhere else which could be developed as potential tiger habitat. Thats why i am not a fan of Mr. Pabla, becoz his approach towards forest is more of exploitation rather then conservation. His action and reaction during tiger crisis in Panna is not somethin to be proud of, read more about Dr. ullas karanth, Dr. krithi karanth, they are eminent wildlife biologist and have done extensive research on hunting practise in india. I guess this is necessary to build a proper mindset on this topic.

shashankspectral, Why do you want to save the Tiger? Thats the same question a villager here in Mizoram asked me.. "They take away the cattle, scare us half to death on our way to our farms and are a total nusiance for us humans" But you and I know that its all about preservation of natural ecological balance and preservation of the 'food chain' If any animal from this natural food chain is removed from the ecology, it gets 'imbalanced' Thus eventually leading to the destrucion of all the animals. For the tiger to survive naturally we need the sambar to survive, for the sambar to survive we need the forest vegetation to survive and so on and so forth. Sometimes we forget that this natural 'food chain' and ecological balance includes us humans! The tiger may be the highest ranking carnivore in the Natural Forest, but we cannot isolate a particular foodchain and hope for it to flourish naturally without including us humans as another participant in the food chain web.

As an 'insider' Dr. Pabla seems to have immense working experience of the forest department and its officials, their capabilities, their limitations, their masters (politicians) and their partners. He seems to know that the current Indian system of 'going with the flow' with intermittent stop gap measures taken to 'patchup' disasters which crop up once in a while isnt going to do anything meaningful in the longrun to curtail the immense pressures put up by man to harvest the riches of the forests.

As he has commented and experienced, all we have to do is step back and see that our present high handed system which is blind to the demands of humans on nature isnt working while systems adopted by the United States and other nations which have adopted a 'middle of the road' system which encompasses human participation has been immensely successful in conservation. Scientists are scientists and will do their experiments in isolation. They come up with a solution to a problem in isolation which results in the cropping up of a thousand other problems! One has to understand nature and human nature and come up with an answer to our problems. Also Dr. Pabla has never proposed a free for all 'open hunting season'

[rraju2805]

Thanx for the informative post.
It is amazing.

[shashankspectral]

shashankspectral, Why do you want to save the Tiger? Thats the same question a villager here in Mizoram asked me.. "They take away the cattle, scare us half to death on our way to our farms and are a total nusiance for us humans" But you and I know that its all about preservation of natural ecological balance and preservation of the 'food chain' If any animal from this natural food chain is removed from the ecology, it gets 'imbalanced' Thus eventually leading to the destrucion of all the animals. For the tiger to survive naturally we need the sambar to survive, for the sambar to survive we need the forest vegetation to survive and so on and so forth. Sometimes we forget that this natural 'food chain' and ecological balance includes us humans! The tiger may be the highest ranking carnivore in the Natural Forest, but we cannot isolate a particular foodchain and hope for it to flourish naturally without including us humans as another participant in the food chain web.

As an 'insider' Dr. Pabla seems to have immense working experience of the forest department and its officials, their capabilities, their limitations, their masters (politicians) and their partners. He seems to know that the current Indian system of 'going with the flow' with intermittent stop gap measures taken to 'patchup' disasters which crop up once in a while isnt going to do anything meaningful in the longrun to curtail the immense pressures put up by man to harvest the riches of the forests.

As he has commented and experienced, all we have to do is step back and see that our present high handed system which is blind to the demands of humans on nature isnt working while systems adopted by the United States and other nations which have adopted a 'middle of the road' system which encompasses human participation has been immensely successful in conservation. Scientists are scientists and will do their experiments in isolation. They come up with a solution to a problem in isolation which results in the cropping up of a thousand other problems! One has to understand nature and human nature and come up with an answer to our problems. Also Dr. Pabla has never proposed a free for all 'open hunting season'

Why i want to save tigers ? Apart from the usual ecological balance and all, i dont want to loose an intimate part of indian natural history, i think no one wants too. And no we are not part of this food chain but rather we own and control this food chain. Do you think human population will decimate if the forest or tigers or sambhar are gone ? Europe lost all its large carnivore and land animal and most of its natural forest some centuries ago but still they are doing really well. What makes us unique from other animal is that we know how to survive under adverse condition but other species are not so fortunate, any slight modification in there food habit and habitat is sure death for them. Surely we have been hunter gatherer in the past, but now we are not. We can very well produce our own food and survive on it, we really dont need hunting to survive, do we ? Apart from few tribes, i dont think there is any human population which is entirely depended on hunting for its food. So the view that human should be equally considered part of food chain doesnt stand.

With due respect to Mr. Pabla, he is an IFS officer, they are trained to exploit forest resources, not many of them are trained to be wildlife conservationist. So his viewpoint should not be seen as a benchmark for this discussion. yes i do agree, Govt. do need to be blamed for current mess, for there high handedness, for ignoring the need of forest based community which has made them more against the forest then for it. But why i am not supporting MR. pabla on this issue is because not enough (enough is an overstatement) studies have been done on hunting practise in india. Even though we might believe that population of some species is exploding, but cant back it with proper facts. As i have said earlier, i am not averse to hunting, but legalizing hunting without proper scientific study will be disastrous.

Moreover with such a huge population, anymore dependence on forest for resources will kill the forest. Neither we have enough forest left nor we can afford to let loose humans on forest for there needs. Our forest are not healthy. Majority of our forest are degraded beyond recognisation. There are only few patches of forest left which can be truely called wild. So first we need to build the capacity of forest, need to improve the state of forest before even thinking about legalising hunting. Countires like SA, USA had sound wildlife management policy for ages, so they can actually afford to allow hunting, can we in present situation is the question.

[shashankspectral]

@ rajat

IS there any introduction thread?

[jonahpach]

shashankspectral you are entitled to have your own opinions.. and thats exactly the problem! All our so called environmentalists are so vehemently opinionated, they all have such a strong religious conviction that wildlife should be protected and conserved at any cost that they fail to see what is staring them in the face. Sometimes I almost believe that they are just interested in projecting themselves as such because they want to go down in history as glorified protectors of the last bastions of our forests.

Countires like SA, USA had sound wildlife management policy for ages, so they can actually afford to allow hunting, can we in present situation is the question.

Wrong! USA and SA jumped into the conservaton band wagon at about the same time India did! But india wanted to show the world that it could come up with a better conservation initiative and came up with exemplary legislation that sought to ban hunting altogether and look where it got us. No you still wont believe that our present system has failed all together would you?? Go for it, support your scientific studies, meanwhile the poachers and tribals who believe that the government is out to take away their only source of livelyhood forever will continue to pillage and plunder what all they can get while it lasts.

i dont want to loose an intimate part of indian natural history, i think no one wants too. And no we are not part of this food chain but rather we own and control this food chain. Do you think human population will decimate if the forest or tigers or sambhar are gone ?

Thats just it! Without any rhyme or reason you just don't want to loose the tiger whatever the cost.. Right? This is not a good enough reason for the tribals and villagers who are face to face with the Tigers and Sambhars every day of their life. They want the Sambhar, they want the tigers as long as harm does not befall them and they can profit from it. The way they see it, if anyone benefits from the forests and animals, they should! And not some city dwelling high handed forest official who signs them off to some logger at his whim.

You think you are out of the food chain but in a country like india where we have a majority population of tribals and villagers who live off the forest and ARE definetly a part of the foodchain, our ecology cannot be equated with europe. Looks like you already have half a mind to let things be since the Forests and wildlife does not affect your food source in any matter whatsoever. Have you ever thought about depletion of water table, climate change and drought? They all affect farming and our food source thus even city dwellers are part of the food chain.

[sa_ali]

The animals not dying natural deaths, they are dying because of poaching, poisoning and in fighting caused due to the shortage of space and over population.

If we move to licensed hunting, we will be generating more Jobs, specially for the villagers and we know for sure, they know forest and conservation more than people sitting in AC rooms and talking about it.

You are talking about an animal which is just 400 in number. We want to increase there number not control it. Moving the excess population to other habitats is a better idea.

Even if we allow licensed hunting i am pretty sure some adventure tourism ventures will hijack it, just like with wildlife tourism.

How can you increase the number when the number existing is dying due to infighting. Secondly in order to increase the number, you need larger area, which is very clear from the fact that the current land allocation is not sufficient.
Secondly, you can increase the number if you lessen poaching, which you have made a point several time in your post. now how can you decrease the poaching.
1. Have good amount of well trained and armed forest guard with infrastructure and means protect them self and animals, which you i guss would be knowing better as to what is the current condition of forest guards. forget being armed well they dont even have decent clothing. The guard post inside the parks reserves is hardly well equipped. In reserves which are in more lime light like ranthambore, jim corbet, pana national park, they are still lil better but in others, its bad.
They are armed with old obsolete weapons, which they can hardly use to fight poachers.
2. Pay the guards better, so that they are better off than poachers and have incentives linked to saving animals.
3. In some areas it impossible but in areas which are flat, have barbs fences, it will introduce some hindrance to animal going out and add hindrance to easy entry.
4. To save abandoned cubs and babies you need good veterinary care centers, inside the reserves. Which i have rarely seen, if its there then there is hardly any staff, if staff is there they dont have equipment, its catch 22 situation. how tigers or lions are getting saved after they have being picked up by the forest officials.

Now for this you need money and money which is accountable not funds. See we have to put a system which is accountable also, in current system, funds come and go, nothing happens on the ground. But when the resource is generated from the park it self and you have both the fund generation and increase in animal as deliverable, i personally believe you are putting check and balance. You issue permit for X amount of animal and you have Y amount of animal added each year.

Secondly you have to realize and when you will legalize the hunting the same poachers will line up to get absorbed to become helpers, this will be legal way of channelizing their skill and for them legal way to earn money.
These tribals are paoching not because they njoi poaching, but thats their skill, they are best at it and they can earn money through it only. You have to give them means of earning, not put them on some monthly monetary scheme and ask them to sit and do nothing, just because you are getting money.

When you will have hunters in forest with legal permit, poaching will come down for sure.

i think we are also deviating from the main topic, the main focus of these article is balance the conservation and highlight the fact that the current system is not working, we have to find some other means, as in the current system you are loosing both crops, animals and forest. Am i wrong in saying this ?. We have to relook at it and present better approach. We cant have general rule of thumb applied across without doing re check if its working or not.

Lastly poaching is much much bigger mafia than killing just for hunting reasons, there is huge amount of money involved, so to fight it just dont need laws you need much more awareness, tighter laws and better vigilance on borders and customs.

If the legalised hunting has worked under the banner of United nation in other countries, then there has to be some reason to it. We cant say the whole africa has failed in conservation. Look at Bustard conservation program in UK, that bird was totally gone, but they have being able to re introduce it back, they got the species back from other countries, which were not so concerned with the same bird.

I am just sharing my thoughts, not pointing finger to any one