Tag Archives: forests

Questionable Intelligence in Wildlife Crime Bureau

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Bubbly, a tiger from Ranthambore recently relocated to Sariska

Bubbly, a tiger from Ranthambore recently relocated to Sariska

The website of the Panna Tiger Reserve greets you with the pug marks of a tiger on its homepage. It carries a nice news ticker about one of the many recent awards it got from the Ministry of Tourism of the Government of India for being the best maintained and tourist-friendly national parks of the country. With over 90 staff managing the Tiger Reserve and being on the tourism circuit, Panna is a fairly small park among the National Parks in the country. A park like Namdapha in remote North-east India has eleven field staff to manage nearly 2000 sq. km of difficult terrain. Even as the project tiger website proclaims 60 tigers in Namdapha Tiger Reserve, India’s largest Tiger Reserve, others who have actually worked there have their reservations. A recent paper in fact uses extensive camera-trapping data to estimate a maximum of TWO tigers in this park! But, it is easy to overlook news from such rarely and difficult-to-visit parks such as Namdapha. That is not the case with Panna though. It has been one of the sought after places to see tigers in the country. One would have thought it must be easier to manage a 500 sq. km well connected park in Madhya Pradesh with over seventy field staff and a smattering of IFS officers with sustained tourist presence and some radio-collared tigers. One is obviously wrong!

Last month, the media reported what has been doing rounds in wildlife circles and local villages near Panna Tiger Reserve; that the tiger whose marks the website bears, are not found in the park anymore. Following a survey conducted in December 2008 by the Wildlife Institute of India and several reports in March about the possibility of Panna doing a Sariska, the National Tiger Conservation Authority sent a team to investigate what the State Government had been attributing to natural deaths of tigers (not appearing unnatural to them that scores of tigers could be dying naturally!). All this even while the State Government denied all possibilities of tiger being locally extinct in Panna. It was only in June this year that the tigerlessness of Panna was officialised.

Day before yesterday, an article in the Pioneer enlightened us about the reason for the tiger deaths in Panna – Radio collaring! A report by the Wildlife Crime Bureau attributed the tiger deaths in Panna to radio collaring, the article said. It found that 80 per cent of tigers killed in Panna have met their deadly fate at the hands of poachers after they were radio collared, glossing over the fact that we could know about their fates ONLY because they were radio-collared. The article said that that the report termed itself “interesting”. Definitely, I must say – very interesting that the report makes a scapegoat of science. Radio tracking of wildlife is widely used for scientific studies, management and conservation of several species across the world – from birds to camels and from turtles to tigers, of course. In fact, critical questions on behaviour and ecology of large mammals are evident only through such methods. Tracking tigers by radio collaring has given us an understanding on important questions such as home ranges of tigers, carrying capacity of tigers in the continuously shrinking tiger reserves, causes of mortality and dealing with the reasons and consequences of conflict with people, especially so with elephants. These answers are exactly what a wildlife manager of a tiger reserve ‘should’ be looking for. And recent conservation literature from India has started answering such questions. While it is legitimate to further investigate the type of collars used and safety of tranquilizers used, it is quite an illogical conclusion that the WCB report seems to be coming to. Obviously, each and every tiger was not radio-collared. Shouldn’t scientists with experience in radio collaring have been involved in this exercise? Was there a thorough analysis on the equipment and data of radio-collaring in Panna and elsewhere done by the WCB? Of course, not. Irresponsibly declaring radio-collaring as a reason in a report belittles the report as well as the huge body of scientific literature about this technique worldwide.One only wonders if the intention of the report is to investigate the crime or blame the ones detecting and reporting the crime!

Two issues come to my mind as I read the developments at Panna, the lack of an information culture and poor scientific temper in State institutions. Take for example the case of infant mortality reporting in the health sector. It’s all a number game – blaming infant deaths on first line health workers results in under-reporting of infant deaths. Who would report infant deaths or tiger numbers truthfully it if retribution rather than help is what you receive from above? The net result of this is that the information reported through the public health system is so poor that if we were to rely purely on health centre data, we would have infant mortality rates of USA or UK! Similar is the case with the tiger numbers – if the usual reaction to smaller tiger numbers reported by scientists outside the system or from watchers on the field is going to be retribution, then we shall always have tiger numbers of the 18th century! Such an attitude in the bureaucracy destroys the innate nature of the field staff to truthfully report information and act on them. Instead, routine institutional data focuses merely on portraying a sense of status-quot or sometimes improvements rather than providing actionable information that should then feed back into management. The other issue of lack of scientific temper is quite evident in the WCB report, which has the audacity to term itself, ‘interesting’ while drawing vicarious temporal associations between tiger deaths and radio-collaring. Let’s face the facts –

Fact 1: Panna lost its tigers – not on the day when the Minister accepted it, but over months (or perhaps years) of poaching.

Fact 2: Radio-collaring as a technique for conservation and management with well-established safety guidelines is widely accepted.

Viewing the tiger extinction in Panna as yet another isolated event with simple reasons like an errant forest guard or radio collaring rather than understanding the socio-political, economic and biological reasons is the most illogical thing to do. For a tiger to survive in Panna like in most of India’s tiger reserves is the result of a complex inter-play between protection, human-animal conflict, irresponsible tourism, poverty and access to eduction, employment and health care in the villages around and not the least of all, political will. Transferring forest officers, suspending guards and blaming radio-collaring are non-solutions. Responsible tourism and conservation research in additon to bringing in revenue, awareness and greater understanding of conservation are also a way of having more eyes and ears in the forests. As long as we continue to produce poor quality data within the Government, it is only logical for the Government – be it health or forest, to encourage applied research and act quickly on the issues that the scientific community brings up. Unfortunately, the forest department is much more closed to science and research than any other department today. Permissions to work in protected areas on important conservation activities is rarely based on the merit of the proposal but on whether it will report poor tiger numbers or dwindling of habitat. And where researchers have been candid with their findings, they have only been faced with cancellation of permits! I am still waiting for the day when a young forest officer in a protected area is empowered enough to publicly discuss issues in his park and network strongly with the scientific community, rather than play hide-and-seek with numbers till there is no other option. We saw this with Sariska and now with Panna. And these are the parks we know about due to the reporting in media, not because they came up in any Government report where we should ideally have been reading about them.



Healthy forests and healthy people – A problem of First among equals

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Aphu was a young man in his twenties when he passed away. In the hinterland of India’s largest tiger reserve, few people keep track of their age, for nobody here registers them for social welfare, nor do they have a doctor who asks them their age to fill up a column on a case sheet. Aphu’s home was in Gandhigram, a remote tribal village in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in North-east India, where he lived a little more than 20 years. His village is surrounded on one side by one of India’s largest tiger reserves, Namdapha Tiger Reserve, and on the other are vast stretches of Myanmar’s Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve, perhaps the world’s largest protected area spanning close to 6000 square kilometers.

Late last year, Aphu died. A healthy young man, he was among the people hired to carry luggage and supplies for a group of people. We were visiting the village to see how we could address their health care needs. Cystic fibrosis did not dry up his lungs. Neither was it any of those eponymous autosomal diseases that strike the young, of which we learn so much in medical school. These diseases were very interesting, with articles about them in journals describing correlations to genes with numbers like the latest version of MS Windows. They all had their “Disability adjusted Life Years”(DALYs) that were screaming out their importance to be taken up in any of the new programs that the State might decide to launch. But, these rare and publishable afflictions were not among those that Aphu was ever afflicted with. He died, quite simply, of malaria. Quite ironic, that a country with nuclear power still has anaemic mothers and malaria deaths!

I have been to Aphu’s village a few times with the wildlife scientists who work here. His village happens to be surrounded by one of the northernmost primary rainforests in the world. The place teems with biodiversity and the forests of Arunachal Pradesh have witnessed descriptions of a new species of bird and even a new primate, all in the past few years. Although, it is the tiger that has given this area its protected status, it is not for the tiger that this national park and many of the forests in Arunachal Pradesh are known. They are famous for their rich biodiversity including several endemic insects, butterflies, birds and plants. Such rainforests play a central role in wildlife conservation and climate change. However, climate change and global warming are distant issues for the Lisu and other tribal people living in and around these forests. Strangely, tigers aren’t.

In India today, there is a public debate on tiger deaths. Tigers and tribal people are being pitted against each other in conferences and in hallowed policy-making chambers. Co-existence of tigers and tribals is being questioned. In an environment where health care is financed literally out of people’s pockets, a tiger’s fate and people’s health can get intertwined easily. And hunting becomes a means of averting any unplanned and sudden catastrophic expenditure. It is invariably health costs that crop up in the category of unforeseen expenses. With poor access to primary health care or even to community health workers, people in such remote regions often find that hunting can finance their long journeys to towns. And it does not help matters that private providers with expensive secondary level care and irrational practices become the first line health providers for these people. The Lisus travel through about 150 km of thick forests interspersed with rivers often in spate, to reach ‘civilization’. From here, they take a 6 hour bus journey to reach a town where they invariably see a private provider. Roads, understandably are a bigger concern than chloroquine.

I work in an NGO in South India, with another indigenous tribal people, called the Soligas. The forests have shrunken around the Soligas, leaving a 540 sq. km area, still remaining, due to its legal protection by the State. The Soligas were semi-nomadic people, until they were forced to settle due in part to the shrinking forests and the legal protection accorded to their forests. They couldn’t hunt anymore. However, a doctor who settled in these hills 25 years ago, began to provide health care to them. He went further to education and livelihood, as just providing health care was helping their health! This NGO today provides health care, education and livelihood to these tribal people. Today, the elderly Soligas talk about how climate has changed. They do not question it and do not need evidence. They know it and also see how their forests are getting choked from the outside.

These two glaring examples from South India and Arunachal Pradesh in North-east India typify the problems faced by people living in and around forests in India. However, the key is in access to basic health care and livelihoods. Wildlife scientists today see this connection between people’s basic needs and their conservation ethic. In fact, it was a group of wildlife biologists that started a community health care program and an education initiative among the Lisus. I went there to train a group of tribal youth in basic health care. Among other things, I wanted these youth to be able to identify and institute treatment against malaria. It was indeed a satisfying experience for me, to see how wildlife biologists had looked beyond their paradigm of biodiversity conservation, and had looked for solutions outside ‘their box’. We, in health care, sadly are yet to make this connection. A glance at our curricula reveals the level of medicalisation that we undergo. A glance at our policy shows how fragmented and restricted it is.

Shrinking forests are an important reason for climate change, and so are empty forests; forests devoid of their biodiversity. While hunting empties forests in some places, it is firewood needs and fires in other places. It is after all people, who are to blame for this. People living in and around forest areas depend on them for their livelihood and daily needs. And when there are financial pressures for any of their needs, they turn to their resources – forests. Thus, they find themselves being the villains accelerating deforestation and emptying the forests. Isn’t this the same thing that our forefathers did, that we find ourselves in this position today? Can we blame them for being late in destroying their forests, just because, we thought of legal protection for it now, and we have climate change now! As population pressures and urbanization increase in India, rural and tribal India face a different problem; one of access – both physical and financial. It is time for health planners to consider the special needs and contextual factors affecting tribal
people and those living or affected by forests. It would be presumptuous to imagine that national programs for any of the diseases will change the situation with these people. Lisus or Soligas and for that matter any individual is not asking for malaria control programs or early cancer detection programs. They are asking for plain health care – financial and physical access to a person who can cure them of their illness and can help them live a healthier life. A malaria program for them is even lower in priority than a road or a source of livelihood, simply because, they have accepted malaria deaths as their destiny. It is perhaps time to think beyond programs and address health as a need in itself rather than health as a consequence of our programs.

Aphu died of malaria in his early 20s only because he was born in a place where climate change and the biodiversity mattered more than his life. In many areas the world over, where man-wildlife conflicts occur, the situation is similar. How are we going to prioritize between biodiversity conservation and people’s needs? Are our politicians and policy-makers even seeing this problem of ‘First among equals’? The global health research agenda needs to gear up to answer these difficult questions; questions that matter to people dying of malaria in this age, when in many countries, research is addressing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Less ramble, some birds

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I have just returned to Itanagar from Jenging, Upper Siang dt. I camped here for 2 days and visited one of the sub-centres of the PHC at Jenging. Most of the journey by vehicle and on foot to the sub-centre were spent birding.

Heavy rains have already begun in Arunachal and the skies were overcast even as I drove through N Lakhimpur and Dhemaji dts of Assam. Meanwhile, the higher peaks have seen some good snowfall, and I am told that Tawang has recieved fair amounts of snow. The drive from Itanagar to Jenging was great. After leaving Arunachal at Bandardeo checkgate and a 100 km drive through Assam, I re-entered Arunachal at the Likhabali checkgate. The road passes through the district of West Siang and winds around the hills northwards to the district of Upper
Siang. The district HQ of West Siang is at Along. After the town of Boleng, which is one of the first towns of Upper Siang, the road for some distance passes alongside the Siang river, the largest of the 3 rivers that make up the Brahmaputra. For a long distance, the road zig-zags on the hills along the river offering some breathtaking views of the ‘turquoise’ waters of the river. At many places, there are hanging bridges across the river. The road then divides, one leading
to Jenging and the other leading to the district HQ of Yingkyong. Incidentally, Yingkyong was fully submerged by the Siang in 2000 when a mining related mishap on the banks of Siang upstream in China caused ‘welling up’ of water, which later burst to deluge some large towns downstream. The whole town was submerged then.

The drive thereafter offers wonderful views of the Mouling National Park. The hills here lack the classic ‘jhum’ facies of the other hills I have been seeing till now. Bird calls were heard more frequently, and number of bird sightings (not on heads, but in the air!) were more. Also, this being an area with a majority of Adi tribal population, the ‘hornbills on the heads’ was not a feature. Unfortunately, I did not see any in the air either!

The road has been taken up by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) and is in all-weather condition. Moreover, Jenging being the constituency of the Chief Minister himself seems to be well-served. The town also enjoys 24 hr power from the hydel project nearby.

Weather conditions were more or less cloudy all through and bird sightings were a precious few. One of the subcentres, I visited is within the Mouling NP (28° 33′ N, 94° 46′ E). It was declared so in 1986 and covers nearly 500 sq. km. Most of the habitat was wet evergreen and semi-evergreen hill forests with many patches of secondary growth. Most of the hills were covered cloud covered, and fast flowing hill streams draining into the Siang were a common feature.

Missing conspicuosly from the list are waterbirds, raptors and gamebirds! Any reason I can give would be merely speculative but……hunting, cloudy weather, number of field hours, and closed
habitat???

But, what I did see are as follows:

1) Mallard Anas platyrhynchos – plenty in waterbodies in Assam
2) Oriental Turtle Dove Streptopelia orientalis – after Boleng
3) Himalayan Swiftlet Collocalia brevirostris – common
4) Ashy Swallow-shrike Artamus fuscus
5) Lesser Racquet-tailed Drongo Dicrurus remifer – Jenging
6) Bronzed Drongo D. aeneus – I saw the largest number of these in
flight, numbering approx 100 crossing the Siang noisily
7) Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo D. paradiseus
8) Large Woodshirke Tephrodornis gularis – before Along
9) Rufous-backed Shrike (Black headed race) – Lanius schach tricolor –
Common
10) Asian Pied Starling Sturnus contra and Jungle Myna Acridotheres
fuscus- Common in Assam plains
11) Scarlet Minivet Pericrocotus flammeus
12) Black Bulbul Hypsipetes leucocephalus in large flocks – Jenging
13) Black-eared Shrike Babbler Pteruthius melanotis- 65th mile on
Along-Jenging road. 3 individuals seen at eye level overlooking the valley
14) Long-tailed Sibia Heterophasia picaoides
15) Striated Yuhina Yuhina castaniceps
16) White-naped Yuhina Y. bakeri
17) Whiskered Yuhina Y. flavicollis – All Yuhinas seen in large flocks
quite common in the Jenging and Ramsingh area
18) Yellow-bellied Fantail Rhipidura hypoxantha
19) Black-backed Forktail Enicurus immaculatus
20) Spotted Forktail E. maculatus
21) Little Forktail scouleri – Was thrilled to see this bird.
Initially, I mistook it for a Magpie-Robin, but the stance and the
white tuft over the forehead forced a re-think. The bird flew into a
higher perch, when I disturbed it from the bottom of a small stream.
Jenging
22) White-capped Water Redstart Chaimarrornis leucocephalus Common
23) Blue-capped Rock Thrush Monticola cinclorhynchus
24) Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush M. rufiventris Jenging
25) Blue Whistling Thrush Myophonus caeruleus
26) Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch Sitta castanea. I have been looking out
for the Beautiful Nuthatch Sitta formosa. No luck till now.
27) Olive-backed Pipit Anthus hodgsonii yunnanensis Jenging
28) Large Pied Wagtail Motacilla maderaspatensis
29) Grey Wagtail M. cinerea
30) White Wagtail M. alba leucopsis & one of the grey-backed races (?
personata)
31) Eurasian Tree Sparrow Passer montanus Very common

Ramblings from Arunachal

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Arunachal Pradesh has been really exciting till now. I have got internet access after a long time, and decided to write about it. It seems to be one of the more peaceful of the states here in the
north-east. The transition from the plains of Assam to the hills of Arunachal is quite drastic if one travels on road. The demarcation between these two states is both physiographic and ethnic. While Assam suffers from very regular bandhs, strikes and ‘chakka jaams’, Arunachal is mostly peaceful. However, most of travel between towns in Arunachal happens through Assam and all strikes there have an effect on movement here. Most of the roads that have been constructed are of excellet quality, having been constructed by the Border Roads Organisation. Also, the districts on China border are being connected by good roads for strategic reasons.

People here strike one as very fiercely independent. Tribal identity is very strong, and people are proud of their tribe and community. The entry of outsiders is allowed only after obtaining at Inner line permit. This can be obtained at Guwahati and the document is to be produced while entering Arunachal. It feels almost like crossing a border. I guess Nepal must be easier to get into. However, this one concept has probably preserved the identity and culture and has limited interventions from outside. At the same time however, there is no private player in any sector – telecom, insurance, banking – and this slows down everything here.

But, what disturbs me most is the emptiness of the forests here. Thick verdant forests clothe the hills…..on entering them, one is hit by their emptiness. Also, most of what is seen outside of protected areas is secondary growth of bamboo and banana. Of course, there are still large stretches of ‘pristine’ jungle at many places. But, seeing jhum to such a large extent is definitely disturbing to an outsider.

Since reports from this part of the country are few, I thought I will share whatever little I have been seeing. I have tried to make up for the low number of bird sightings by sharing some info about the places!

I saw my first Upland Buzzard (Buteo hemidaisicus) Sangram in Kurung Kumey district. This district is a new one and gets its name from two large rivers, Kurung and Kumey. The district borders China, and one can reach the nearest Chinese village by 3 days walk from the district
HQ of Koloriang. The PHC at Sangram which I visited is located on the tip of a cliff overlooking the valley of the river Kurung. The Buzzard was gliding above the hills on the other side of the river, and ‘hovered’ for a few seconds, much like a Kestrel.

Grey-cheeked Warblers (Siecircus poliogenys) were quite a few around the PHC.

I have seen countless hornbills till now – on people’s heads!! The Nyishi tribal elders wear a hat which is decorated with the ‘casque’ of the hornbill. It even has a feather or two – either of hornbills or the racquets of the racquet tailed drongo. Almost all the tribals carry a ‘dao’. It is kept in a bamboo case, which is hung around the trunk in a belt made of bear hide. Youth carrying air guns for hunting were also frequently seen.

Forktails (Slaty backed and black backed) and Blue whistling thrushes were common near hill streams.

On the whole, I am travelling a lot. I have visited 2 districts. I am leaving for Jenging which is in Upper Siang district and within Mouling WLS and will proceed to Roing in Lower Dibang Valley district.

Hope I will be able to write from Roing……