Finding The Will To Conserve Wildlife Endemic To India
De-politicising the environment could mean looking at the area through geography, and not just geopolitics, writes Neha Sinha.
In 2015, an elephant from Dalma, Jharkhand, walked towards West Bengal. From there, it trundled across the Indian border and entered Bangladesh. There it was gunned down, allegedly by Bangladeshi border troops. What looked like a regular place to the animal was an international boundary, and the animal was felled to geopolitics.
This is just one incident. Other incidents have been darkly funny: like wild pigeons being intercepted as ‘spies’ over the border. Others are gruesome and unreported, of non-political animals being persecuted for crossing a border or entering countries with different sets of circumstances. Studies on elephants for instance have proved that they require to move in order to survive. Each animal must find adequate food each day. This is more than 100 kilograms, including tree bark, bamboo, leaves, flowers, fruit and shoots. This compels elephants to migrate, a natural connect often cut unnaturally. Things may get easier for three Indian species though, because the Elephant, Great Indian Bustard and Bengal Florican have been listed in Appendix-I of the Convention on Migratory Species after being proposed for listing by the Government of India in its recently concluded meeting.
The CMS is an United Nations-led convention which grants protection to species which migrate—member countries are bound to give safe passage to such animals.
In India’s particularly tough neighbourhood, the Convention is international soft law that can be a mediator.
And there is a lot to mediate: the Great Indian Bustard and the Bengal Florican are birds that are endemic to the Indian subcontinent; both are also hanging by a thread. The Great Indian Bustard, also known as GIB, is down to about 100 individuals. The last breeding populations are in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Some of these birds are thought to make short-term migrations to Pakistan. Unfortunately, Pakistan gives licenses to wealthy shooters—notably middle-eastern royalty—to shoot bustards. Though the targets are the Houbara Bustard (related to the Great Indian Bustard), the GIB would likely be shot if spotted.
While it is not clear how many GIB Pakistan has, it is clear each bird—including the Indian migrants—is a precious gene pool comprising a significant percentage of the global population.
Meanwhile, the Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis), named after Bengal, is ironically extinct in West Bengal and Bangladesh now. This black, white and gold bird is reduced to inhabiting tiny fragments of wet grasslands of India and Nepal, and is critically endangered with an estimated global population of about 300 birds. A few birds from Uttar Pradesh’s Dudhwa cross into Nepal, or vice versa. While Nepal is not party to the CMS, the listing in Appendix-I will be a means of memorandum of understandings or other instruments for the Bengal Florican.
The thirteenth CMS conference of parties meeting has just wrapped up in Gujarat. As the host, India will be President of the CMS for the next three years, till the next meeting. This gives India legroom to negotiate bilaterals and conservation planning. As per decisions adopted at the meeting, India will be hosting the coordinating office for the Central Asian Flyway, which is the bird migration route of the Central and South Asian region. Migratory routes are conserved by mapping flyways in the sky—for migratory birds like geese, ducks and Bustards. For the sea, swimways are mapped—for marine mammals such as whales, dugongs as well as reptiles and fish like turtles and sharks. Similarly, terrestrial routes—for animals such as antelopes, giraffes and chimpanzees that move across borders are also documented.
At the end of the day, with their largest viable populations, it is up to India to protect the Bengal Florican, the GIB and the elephant. The future of the species, similar to that of the tiger, rests majorly within national political will.
And a recent study shows peninsular endemics—species found only in the Indian subcontinent—as well as those found solely in India—are not doing well. Ten institutions have come together for the first State of India’s birds report, which looks at the status of wild birds in India.
Endemic species of the Western Ghats—birds like the Crimson-backed Sunbird—have declined 75 percent since 2000. Peninsular endemics—found over the subcontinent—are also in trouble. Birds like the tiny Rufous-fronted Prinia and the large Indian vulture have massively declined. Migratory bird numbers have also come down, a combination of a warming world and lost habitats. Studies show that birds are likely to require more stopover sites while migrating, due to changing climactic conditions. Otherwise, they are likely to die from exhaustion.
Perspective on conserving migratory species could be one last way at creating ties in a region not known for them.
This may be a specious link, but one that nevertheless reminds us that like we share wildlife, we also share resources such as river water.
De-politicising the environment could mean looking at the area through geography, and not just geopolitics.
India is at the centre of conserving species as different as a grassland bird and a forest giant: it must now step up to the task of both national and international conservation.
Neha Sinha works with the Bombay Natural History Society.
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