When neither wildlife nor humans respect borders | Janaki Lenin

A collection of essays, Nature Without Borders, edited by environmental historian Mahesh Rangarajan and ecologists M.D. Madhusudan and Ghazala Shahabuddin, refreshingly explores opportunities for conservation in farmlands and community pasture lands. Most research and conservation of wild species takes place in protected forests in India. These little oases of wildlife were marked out to prevent farmers from clearing more forest land. Agriculture was thought to be the biggest threat to wildlife since the 1970s. Within these reserves, the goal of conservation was to erase all human activity so the forests could revert to prehistoric Edens. Managers and conservationists often looked to parks to solve any wildlife problem, like the conservation of an endangered species, preventing wild carnivores from preying on livestock, and stopping herbivores from wandering into neighbouring croplands. In the introduction, the editors acknowledge that parks are necessary for conservation, but conservation is a universal goal and cannot be confined to parks. Even where people don’t have homesteads inside these Edens, residents living around parks’ edges graze livestock in the forest, and collect fruits, bamboo, and other produce. Elephants, tigers, and other wild species routinely venture out into farmlands in search of easy food. Neither animals nor humans respect borders. Besides, toxins reach within through air or water, and the pervasive effects of climate change leave no part of the world unscathed. Gopi Sundar, a crane biologist, writes of rice farmers’ acceptance of sarus cranes in their fields. Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populous states in the country with 800 people per 100 hectares, hosts the largest population of sarus cranes in the world. Traditional farming practices allow the world’s tallest flying birds to flourish. They eat crops, make nests in fields, and raise chicks in nearby wetlands. In this state, people almost deify cranes because they believe the birds mate for life. Hence, they tend to overlook the damage to their crops. The farmers are protectors and conservationists of sarus cranes. If they became hostile to the birds like their brethren in Bihar and Bengal, switched to dry crops like corn, or if wetlands were drained, the cranes would suffer. We could cry over what was lost when wetlands were converted to rice fields ages ago and paint farmers as villains. Or we can promote conservation-friendly farming practices. In such a situation, Gopi Sundar argues working with farmers offers the most cost effective way of conserving cranes. Not only traditional farming, even industrial-size corporate plantations can become wildlife-friendly. In another essay, Divya Mudappa and her colleagues write of their efforts to restore small scraps of forests within the vast acreage of tea and coffee in the Valparai plateau, Tamil Nadu. The peril of earlier decades – agriculture – is undergoing an image makeover. In the high reaches of the Himalayas, snow leopards follow prey animals over vast distances. No protected area is large enough to hold more than a few cats. Yash Veer Bhatnagar and his colleagues from Nature Conservation Foundation help communities deal with the loss of livestock. The organization helps residents build sturdy barns, run their own livestock insurance schemes, and set aside reserves where grazing is prohibited so numbers of wild prey increase. To middle-class wildlife enthusiasts, nature is encapsulated in protected forests that cover only 5% of the country. But the book’s editors say, Nature spans rather than spills over borders. They free our perception of nature from its stifling confines. Nature is in urban backyards where songbirds sing, and in the monotonous plantations of tea and coffee where elephants and gaur sedately wander. Nature is also a sad remnant of a forest completely surrounded by real estate developments in Delhi, and it is contained in ancient dilapidated lakes in Bengaluru. Areas where humans live and produce food may not be as iconic as tall, dense forests, but numerous species call them home. The essayists show that conservationists can span not just urban citizens but also include farmers, fishermen, citizens, and companies. Nature Without Borders is published by Orient Blackswan and is available in online stores.