To save animals, be human

Parbina Rashid

Karuna Haloi joined Bagori range as a casual staff 20-odd years ago. In his endless wait to be made permanent, he never realised when he had turned a middle-aged man.’‘Many a time he wanted to leave his job. But the fact that a couple of years ago they raised his salary to Rs 3,000 and, then, again to Rs 4,000, had raised his hope…’

This is how well-known Assamese journalist and author Dileep Chandan describes the career graph of a foot soldier in the forest department in his novel, The Ballad of Kaziranga.

Knowing Dileepda at a personal level and how he flitted in and out of Kaziranga for four years to build the base for his novel, I can say with conviction that the plot may be fictitious, characters imaginary, but not his observations. So when leading wildlife conservationist and author Valmik Thapar argues for a new set of custodians for ‘Forest India’ in his book Saving Wild India, even at the risk of advocating privatisation, I couldn’t agree more.

To quote him, ‘If the forest department were custodians for nearly 150 years, the time has now come for them to partner other custodians, be it local communities, NGOs, tourism specialists, corporates and all other players who have a stake in seeing the forests safe and secure. If this is called privatisation, so be it.’

Having spent four decades serving the wildlife in India, Thapar minces no words when he lashes out at the top-appeasing government system, ‘If poachers can be put in jail for seven years for killing a tiger, how about punishing IAS and IFS officers for gross negligence of their duties?’

He has a valid point. After Sariska lost 20 tigers and Panna 34, the IAS and IFS officers of both states, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, were rewarded with promotions. Thapar’s understanding of the system stems from his working with various government committees for 25 long years and a longer association with Ranthambore National Park.

His book that comes with a tagline A Blueprint for Change covers a period of nearly 40 years, from 1975 to 2014, presenting his observations and analysis in a no-frill manner.

Thapar begins with a legal framework for wildlife in India in which he argues that all the outdated pre-Independence laws should be repealed, discusses the federal structures and issues of governance in threadbare and makes a strong case for the high-level Subramaniam Committee’s recent suggestions that India needs an All-India Environmental Service that can focus on environmental and urban issues separately. To weed out the uncommitted and infuse some fresh blood into the ranks!

A supporter of sustainable tourism, Thapar firmly believes that Corporate Social Responsibility can be tapped to turn wildlife townships into smart green towns and re-greening wastelands. He even suggests new tourism models that lease out areas for visitors in a Public Private Partnership set-up. The brain behind the Van Dhan Yojana that encourages employment and income generation through forest-friendly activities and business, Thapar is a pragmatist who knows that economy cannot be de-linked from ecology. 

Now, it is for the government to recognise it too and take this book as a reference point to initiate debates and discussions on the subject and come up with concrete plans to provide oxygen to the ailing ecosystem.