| Where's the forest service in this?
TWO items of news in the past week, on India's tiger count and on forest depletion, has caused much anguished comment. It appears the newer and much more accurate ways of counting tigers show the number is substantially less (and dropping) than was assumed. And that forest cover depletion, nationally, has been rather rapid in this decade; about 700 sq. km gone in the past three years alone. What is interesting is that there was so little said, on or off the record, from the professionals in charge of our jungles and wildlife, the men and women of the Indian Forest Service. If the answer is that this is because they are government officials, and not supposed to talk, our point is that this is part of the problem; we cannot afford a closeddoor affair on ecology and forests. Foresters have to learn to actively engage with civil society. Else, their charge — a trust held on behalf of all of us — will vanish altogether.
We have to switch to a system which harnesses volunteer energy and draws on the wealth of knowledge and research and expertise existing outside the government. The sharing of information both ways has to become a basic. These require changes in policy and government working, for which the IFS has to vigorously push. Apart from which, we would like to know what the IFS cadre is doing to equip forest guards and other field staff to deal with poaching. Guards lack police powers; if one opens fire on poachers, even in self-defence, he is liable for prosecution and jail, apart from a long-drawn court case. Nor, if maimed or killed in confronting poachers, is there a policy, let alone a consistent one, on rehabilitation or generous compensation for the family. Transport and wireless aids are a like story.
When did you last hear of the IFS taking a stand on this issue, of demanding time-bound reform on these basics? If they do not, who is going to? Forest officers may well complain that the rest of us are equally to blame. There is, after all, close to no awareness in even educated people about why forests, rural and urban, are so vital or why the steep declines in the tiger or the vulture or the otter has implications far, far beyond the species. But they have no business to stay so silent when they intimately know (or should) of so many things going wrong. It's time they moved beyond official memos and notings on files.
Sriram Savarkar
Hinduism is more a way of life than a method of worship.
Dharmo Rakshati Rakshithaha
If you protect Dharma, Dharma will in turn protect you
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