Wildlife Conservation

Image- "A Clouded Leopard on a tree branch"
We address nature as our mother in the form of very popular term "mother nature"। The blind race of "Materialisation" has been a driving force of rapid "Industrialisation" around us. As a prime measurement of prosperity, productivity of one nation possesses extreme significance. For achieving our economic goals, every time we are to compromise with our very own "Mother Nature's" compositon and due to our invincible existance on the planet rest organisms happen to be mere simpleton tools of our selfish machinery, fighting with odds densely for making sure they survive a bit longer.
The degradation of "Flora & Fauna" has corrupted in a faster pace, leaving many troubles for human beings themselves. In this article I want to focus my attention on swift loss of Wild Animal's Biological Diversity in India. Our country (India) celebrates wildlife week on every first week of Ocober.
Matter of the fact is the whales are killed in the deep ocean, the tusks are being removed from the elephants and the skin and bones of thiger are exchanged in the border area, rare migratory birds are captured and sold in the black markets around the world. Yet as mentioned above wildlife week and other similar kinds of seminars and movements are mangaed by governments, environmentalists, activitists to accelerate the awareness of wildlife conservation among people. India, being a mega storehouse of various species, is also able to manage several conferences ,awareness programmes, public meetings among the nature-lovers. But it lasts a week. Then the concern over wildlife is relegated to the backburner as the mandate to conserve the wild species is given to the NGOs or self claimed conservationists.
India, having two "hot spots" -The Eastern Himalaya ans The Western Ghats- is one of the 12 mega diversity countries. With only 2.4% of the global land area, it possesses more than 45,000 plant species, representing about 11% of the world's Biota. The flowering plants comprise about 17,500 species that represent more than 6% of world's known flowering plants. There are a number of botanical curiosities in the Himalayas only. India's immense Faunal diversity that is estimated to be over 81,000 represents about 6.5% of World's Fauna. As many as 29 endangered species like Slow Loris, Brown Bear, Himalayan Lynx, Clauded Leopard, Musk Deer, Ibex are found in India.
Once protected by the Mauryan Emepror "Ashoka", the River Dolphins of Ganges, though legally protected under The Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, are neglected by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). If the number of species matters, as TIger gets 27 reserved protected areas, The River Dolphin must get the same number of protected areas. The irony is that only a 50 Km stretch og Ganga in Bihar has been declared as "Dolphin Sanctuary". So far the government does not have any substanitial data on the animal, it has never carried out any scientific study or conducted a head count of this endangered animals.
Tiger gets the Lion's share from the budget of MoEF, since 1973 (Project Tiger), millions of Rupees have been spent on Tiger and still the animal is in danger. Indian policy makers are still in the circle of outdated conservation theory (propounded by the West) that Tiger conservation (animal at the highest level of Ecosystem) would lead to balance Bio Diversity.
The seriousness of celebrating wildlife week is not only to educate the young people like school children but also to rectify the flaws in the conservation efforts by the government. The key of global wildlife conservation in 21st centuary must be to craft solutions that meet the specific requirements of each species and its specific circumstances.
Devashish Mishra "Nucleusfermi"
Relevent data collected form online edition
of news paper "The Hindu".