Need of the hour.

Hi readers

Hope you are all doing well.

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”

-Chris Maser

The word life brings a charm in our minds, because we all love to live, enjoy this world which is beautiful and filled with life.

The earth is 4.853 billion years old, it is home to thousands of species the modern man or famously called the homosapien is living from just 2 million years.

If we think about how all this evolution or the geneses happened? The first answers that strike is the chemicals of the ancient earth, the evolution of the gene proteins, the uni-cellular organisms, then the multi-cellular creatures and then the plant and animal kingdoms and then finally we!

From these 2 million years we have lived on this earth what have we achieved? let us put it on a list.

We learnt how to make and use tools, how to create fire, finally farming and how to domesticate animals and use them for various purposes. But now there is a major imbalance that is created due to man, the reason is man's selfishness and materialized life.

We are very much hurt by some people who treat animals very poorly, for instance if we visit a forest, the way people behave is ordeal to look at, there are instances where some people pelt stones at elephants and chasing deers.

Why have we cultivated such a bad habit of destroying and tampering nature's assets, aren’t we aware that forests are ours? It is the three letter word ‘ego’ and greed what is making a human being so heartless. India is currently left with only 3% of protected areas in forms of National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries, Tiger Reserve, Conservation Reserve and Community Reserve.

There are other forests which don’t come under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. They fall into the territorial division. Out of 3%, not all are well protected. Each PA (Protected Area) is facing many problems where conservationists are becoming helpless. Problems arise where there is presence of people.

Poaching, illegal encroachment, illegal felling of trees and driving rashly inside the forests which causes road kills of wild animals. All such problems are grave in nature. To solve them one needs the support of common people. But when such common people are only the reasons for these problems, how can the solution be found?

Poaching thrills some set of people, where they derive some sort of wired satisfaction when they kill an animal. After the kill the meat of the animal is consumed and some of the body parts are sold which gains them higher profits. Illegal encroachment results in habitat loss. For example there is a patch of forest where elephants regularly use that path for migration. Slowly that patch is being encroached and the result of that is a non-forest land. When elephants use the path for movement They are electrocuted and killed for the reason that they are causing trouble for the people.

Whose mistake is it? According to human beings, for his/her survival, they can go to whatever extent they want.

Illegal felling of trees is for the timber production. They are in a high demand. When one cuts tons of trees in the forests, they are used for various commercial purposes resulting in deforestation. Rash driving inside the forest and stopping and getting down from the vehicles, shouting like hooligans inside the Forests create massive disturbance.

According to the law any such above mentioned acts are considered to be illegal and the people can also be jailed. Recently there was a supreme court judgement that roads in the Pench Tiger Reserve to be widened and it also stated that development is More important than tigers.

This will add more ingredients for the destruction of forests. Forest fires are very dangerous, where the fire blazes destroys acres of forest land and also kills many land dwelling animals. There is a misconception in this case that forest fires are natural Phenomenon. Readers this is nothing but a myth. Forest fires are caused by the people for there benefits. Yearly, in the summer season people set fire to the to the forests. For the forests to get recovered form this requires a long time.

Problems are inevitable. It has to be minimized. At first strengthening  of forest department is needed. More and more staff should be recruited for the lower rank (guards, foresters and watchers) of the department because it is they who patrol the forests regularly and ensures protection. Sadly there are huge vacancies in the lower order across all most all the forests in India.

Secondly, it is us the common people should change our attitudes and March forward to protect and conserve our last remaining set of forests and its animals. There is still a ray of hope that our forests will not be destroyed any further.

Please have look at this link where supreme court said development is more important than tigers!

http://m.timesofindia.com/home/environment/developmental-issues/Development-more-important-than-tigers-Supreme-Court-says/articleshow/50662141.cms

Let us all start the wave of conservation.

Living with hope

Harish Murthy and Tejus R.S