The Co-existence Syndrome

Mendha Lekha, a tribal hamlet in Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra will become the first village in the country to be granted the right to harvest bamboo as per the provisions of The Forest Rights Act 2006(FRA) which quite ironically enlists bamboo as a ‘minor forest produce’! The Extraction of Bamboo which is treated as Timber as per the Indian Forest Act 1927 will no longer be in the control of the Forest Department. While it will surely benefit the Gond Tribals and the Naxal affected District of Gadchiroli to generate revenue, the fate of Bamboo Groves, a unique feature of Tropical Asian forests is sealed.

Do we know the Total percentile biomass bamboo contributes to in a Forest? Do we know their Regeneration rates? And Extraction of how many tons per unit Area will not degrade the forest? If no, then on what basis is Bamboo considered a minor produce? What are the measures to prevent over exploitation of this resource by the Gram Sabha which will ‘manage’ its extraction? These are the many questions to which I suppose we will not find convincing answers, and this is an example of how this new brand of environmentalism infected with the ‘co-existence syndrome’ has further eroded the Forest protection laws, made things more difficult than ever for the already weakened Forest Department and strengthened the forces involved in the use, misuse and abuse of nature.

Now before you comment about how tribals live in harmony with the forest, How they should have their right to maintain their traditional ways, how ‘sustainable development’ can take place, I would like state a very fundamental truth about Humans which is contradictory to the ‘co-existence theory’, that is ‘Humans CANNOT co-exist with Forest’ this is not an ideology, philosophy or any agenda it’s a basic character that has influenced human evolution. Our Ancestors left the Trees for Grasslands more than 4 million years ago! We developed erect posture as an adaptation of our grassland habitat, developed weapons to hunt ungulate prey which was abundant in grasslands, developed settled agriculture and then when our natural grassland habitat become saturated or degraded we destroyed forests and ‘created’ grasslands. Tribals don’t live in Forests they live in ‘grasslands’ which they have created in these Forests, grasslands which are growing in size due to the growth of tribal population.

The Second problem in the Co-existence theory is that the ‘world is a village’, forest produce are not just used locally but exported to National and International Markets, Markets for which the size and rate of supply CANNOT be Sustainable. The Bamboo from Gadchiroli will find its way into Nagpur’s construction industry, will stimulate more demand, degrade forests in the region and at the same time discourage Bamboo Cultivation which is sustainable in the truest sense.

Considering the trend of conversion of forests into grasslands and ultimately into barren lands, I think there is an urgent need to protect whatever little forests we are left with from all abusive human influences and extraction for ‘minor forest produce’ be it bamboo or tendu can hardly be called sustainable. It is best for us to encourage modern agricultural and animal husbandry practices and reduce unsustainable dependence on forests.

- Aditya Malgaonkar

Adventure is just bad planning - Excursion to Amboli

1^st and 2^nd September 2010

Sawantwadi and Amboli

The title of this post is a quote by Norwegian Explorer Roald Amundsen which I feel best describes our time in Amboli, a small hill station in Sindhudurgh District of Maharashtra. We had long planed out Zoology Short Excursion to this place and had booked tickets to Sawantwadi which is a town 30km from Amboli and is connected to Mumbai via the Konkan Railway. After having to cancel our tickets due to the landslides in Amboli and getting the trip postponed, we were disappointed when a second landslide occurred. But this time we decided not to let that thwart us and went ahead with our journey with no plans about what to do once we reach there. On reaching Sawantwadi in the evening we checked into a Lodge near the ST Bus Depot, which was also being used by the local pimps and their Prostitutes as we later discovered.(thanks to Jacob's keen ears) The next day we left for Malvan as the road to Amboli was still blocked. After coming back from malvan having enjoyed the Tarkarli beach and scrumptious Malvani Food, we got to know that the road to Amboli had been cleared and so the next day we arrived at Amboli.

Amboli was damp and everything from the Hotel Floor to the bed sheets gave you a sticky feeling when you touched them, in fact Amboli gives you a constant feeling of being wet no matter how hard you try to stay dry, but the worst of monsoon rains seemed to have subsided. We left for a trail into the forest as soon as we had some breakfast. The calls of Malabar Whistling Thrush attracted us towards a road sided by dense vegetation and going into the forest. We spotted a Green vine snake just as we entered the forest, further ahead we spotted nothing else other than

the countless leeches crawling up our feet and most people were too frustrated to continue and left back after an hour or so while me along with few others were lucky to encounter a Barking Deer Muntiacus muntjak just a few minutes later. In the evening we came across more of the little things that you would see in a forest which included a Banded ground Gecko (Geckoella), Camel Crickets (Rhaphidophoridae), Sheild Tailed Snake (Uropeltis sp) and a Tarantula (Theraphosidae). I wasn’t disappointed by the relatively few morning and evening sightings as I was looking forward to a eventful Night Trail.

But after having a delightful Malvani Dinner Parkar Sir went straight to have a good night sleep while none of the girls and only two of the boys showed up for the Night Trail. So we started at around 11.00pm with Shantikumar and Johann accompanying me. I remember the look on Johann face when he saw me moving towards the same leech infested Forest trail that we took in the morning but we decided to go for it and we saw a Malabar pit viper on that trail and all those leech bites were worth that find. After going back to the market to have some tea we took the Highway going east to Belgaon and searched along the road.

The forest was resonating with the calls of Bush frogs(Raorchestes sp) and several other species; I was busy photographing things that Johann and shanti were skillfully finding. A beautiful Tusshar Silk Moth attracted my attention, while shanti searched for the Bush frogs and Johann proved that he’s the boss when it comes to spotting spiders as after spotting one spider after another he came across a large and handsomely colored Sparrasid Spider probably belonging to the Genus Heteropoda. Little else was seen after that and therefore we took a diversion 2 kms east of the Amboli to the Hiranyakeshi temple some 4km away with a hope of finding more things, but sadly there was very little forest left along the road and we did not see anything interesting. To make things worst it started raining and we were drenched from head to toe by the time we reached the temple at around 4.30am in the morning. My friends made use of the cobbled stone parapet of a house to catch some sleep while I slept on its veranda, we woke up at 6.00am to discover that our hands and feet had turned white and were numb due to the cold.

This usually happens in cold and wet weather but in our case it was severe as we had not eaten anything after having dinner and had walked 10kms or more in the night. When it’s cold your body needs to spend energy to heat itself up, but we has none left in us thus forcing the body to use a secondary method which involves the restriction of blood flow into extremities such as fingers and toes as well as the skin. However we managed to get ourselves back on our feet and were able to trek 6kms back to the hotel. On our way back we came across Black Bulbuls, Paradisefly Catchers, White Rumped Shama and Malabar Whistling Thrushes inhabiting the trees, Red Wattled Lapwings in the fields while Spot Billed Ducks, Lesser Whistling Ducks and Open Bills were seen inhabiting the flooded the banks of the Hiranyakeshi River.

Looking back at Amboli and Malvan Excursion I conclude that it was the finest trip I have ever been to with people who had absolutely no Interest in Zoology or at least in the non-textual part of it but it’s good to see that through such ventures these students of zoology are taking interest in Binoculars along with microscopes and are learning things in the Field and not just in the laboratories but on the other hand it’s a matter of great concern that 49 Mining leases had been granted in Sindhudurg District alone before the Environment Minister Mr. Jairam Ramesh ordered a review of Mining leases but if the leases are cleared acres of pristine forests like Amboli are at risk of being lost forever.

- Aditya Malgaonkar