CONSERVATION AT THE CROSSROADS

Transcription

1 CONSERVATION AT THE CROSSROADS Speech by Dr. George Schaller on 17 th February 2008 in WWF-India Dr. George B. Schaller, one of the most respected conservation scientists in recent history, was in New Delhi on the 17th of February,2008, as the Chief Guest at a forum CONSERVATION AT THE CROSSROADS organized by WWF-India, Wildlife Conservation Society, and LAW E. The speech by Dr. George Schaller, delivered at the auditorium of WWF-India, is reproduced below in the interest of sharing his views with a much wider audience. Distinguished colleagues and guests: I am happy to be back in India and see so many old friends again whose conservation effort I so admire. I am deeply grateful to have been asked to attend this event in honor of Harish Salve. Every country needs persons of moral courage such as Harish Salve to help the environment conservation with knowledge, dedication, and vision. That the Supreme Court of India shows such deep concern for forests and wildlife has no precedence in any other country. When I look at some of the important interventions by the Supreme Court, its impact has been invaluable: stop extraction of dead trees from wildlife reserves, prohibit road building in reserves, and stop mining in ecologically fragile habitats, to name just three. It makes me embarrassed to look at my country, the US, where in the past 8 years the exact opposite of these issues has been promoted by the administration. My talk is in two parts: 1) comments on conservation throughout all countries these will not be new to you, but I think they might needs some emphasis; and 2) slides of my work in Tibet to show changes among the nomads in just 25 years.) Conservation is at a crossroads. I began wildlife research and conservation work in 1952, and I first came to India in Since that time more of our planet has been consumed by us than in all of previous human history and the destruction is accelerating as we mercilessly plunder the planet. We all know the environmental problems, everything from habitat destruction and species extinction to pollution and climate change. Future generations are inheriting an impoverished world. But human survival, even if promoted by self-interest, is a good argument for saving biodiversity. There is a Chinese saying: All the flowers of the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.

2 Our task is to save the seeds. Yet countries still tend to look at the environment with 19 th century thinking to find 21 st century solutions. What must we do our best to save species, everything from the magnificent tiger to the most insignificant worm in the soil? How do we maintain the ecological processes about which we know so little yet upon which our future depends? How many species can a system lose before it collapses? The web of life is being torn apart. Yet we are wholly dependent on the ecological services that nature provides for free: clean air and water, soil, fuel, medicines. What must we do to assure coexistence between people and wildlife? What must we do to preserve some wilderness, undeveloped and unaffected by greed, a space for the soul, a place where we can find inspiration and renew our ancient ties with nature? These and other questions need urgent answers and major efforts. Take just one limited aspect of the problem which I will talk. During the past century many have fought to establish and maintain national parks and other protected areas. Though often under-funded and poorly managed, reserves have saved many exceptional places of beauty, places that would otherwise have been degraded or destroyed. India has some of the finest reserves in Asia and the world. But the networks of small scattered reserves can not now protect a country s natural heritage because of the following reasons: 1) Most reserves are small islands of habitat surrounded by people. Research has shown that extinction rates of species in small fragmented habitats are very high due to inbreeding, diseases and other causes. (As an aside, governments generally are far too slow in accepting and addressing important scientific results, often only after 2 decades or more, whether we talk of tiger census methods, habitat fragmentation, or climate change). 2) Over two-thirds of the world s reserves have people living in them and using supposedly protected resources. In addition, people enter reserves to graze livestock, collect fuel wood, hunt for themselves and the market, and in other ways degrade the habitat. 3) Global warming will affect all habitats by shifting vegetation zones and species. A small reserve offers no opportunities for plants and animals to adapt to changing conditions, and many will become extinct. Most countries have reasonable good environmental laws and regulations on paper. The problem is implementation in protecting even the small existing reserves, much less what needs to be done to save the remaining natural environment in the years ahead. A guard

3 force is usually underpaid and lax, and punishment for ecological vandalism is low and slow. What needs to be done? Another proverb fits here: If we don t change our course, we will end up where we re going. We desperately need plans for the environment, not just development. Every country needs a detailed land-use plan. We must expand our vision beyond small reserves with small buffer zones and instead protect and actually manage whole large landscapes, sustainable landscapes. Such landscapes required zoning. 1. There must be major areas of carefully managed human use. 2. Each landscape would also have several core areas, well-protected refuges for plants and animals, and a reservoir of biodiversity. Current reserves could be one source for such cores. These would serve as genetic store houses of species, provide plants and animals for restoration elsewhere, offer a place for research to measure changes and learn how natural systems work, and give people a view of their country as it once was. The resettlement of people from some critical wildlife areas is an important initiative in India. 3. Then you need corridors of habitat so that species can disperse to other core area. And elsewhere. 4. Of course each landscape must have its carnivores, large and small, from leopard and tiger to spider, because without predators the ecosystem cannot function properly. So any landscape needs its cores, corridors, and carnivores three Cs. India has several large landscape initiatives: The Terai Arch project along the foothills of the Himalaya from India to Nepal, and the Tigers Forever program that extends from the forests of Bhutan through Arunachal Pradesh into Myanmar. On a smaller scale you have the important project in Karnataka. The recent conservation planning for tigers and their prey looked at 6 landscape complexes. These exceptional efforts need our full support. And more need to be initiated. With the new Scheduled Tribes Act, India will have to manage all its forests on a landscape basis. How will the Act be actually implemented on the ground? Naturally the needs, aspirations and attitudes of the local people must be considered while protecting the diversity of life. Traditionally, individuals and small NGOs have done part of the conservation work. Their efforts remain ever more important because in recent years, conservation agendas

4 have all too often been surrendered to development agencies whose focus is development and poverty alleviation, not conservation. Such projects spend millions of dollars, are top-down often with little knowledge of the local situation, and do not accomplish much in the 2-3 years of funding. We must instead strive for coexistence with nature, to balance development with the long-term good of the land and its people. And, above all, as conservationists we must never lose sight of our main purpose: to help plants and animals endure. A landscape programs must have certain attributes: 1. Landscape programs must be long-term, lasting decades. No conservation task is ever completed. Changes in the environment and in culture are constant and these need ever-lasting vigilance and monitoring. 2. Conservation initiatives must be based on knowledge not intuition, and long-term ecological and cultural research is essential. 3. There must be sincere national and state commitment with well-developed and dedicated institutions, properly funded, from forest guard and local official to state and national government. 4. There must be NGOs on the ground (not in offices) to collect information and to alert government and the public to problems. 5. Very importantly, you must make local communities stewards of their land in cooperation with government, NGOs and other partners. Think of co management of resources, set up land trust, or otherwise give them a stake in conservation. They are the ones who will ultimately determine success or failure. Conservation depends on them. They need to place value on wildlife and forest. Communities must become directly involved, and they can take responsibility for censusing wildlife, monitoring the environment to detect changes, protect their area against intrusion by outsiders, organize tourism, and so forth. 6. Available effort has started to provide environmental education to local communities, but do we have public support. Only the public can make the government do the right thing. To give people just more information about wildlife is not enough. Conservation to most people is very peripheral to their interest. Remember, so many urban people are now tuned to the virtual reality of TV and the internet, not the reality of nature. In the US there has been a 25% drop in national park attendance in two decades. You have to arouse the public by addressing their needs, emotions and values, whether, moral, sacred, nationalistic, or other. Conservation must reach the emotions not just the mind. Furthermore, people must feel that they can make a difference. They must be stimulated to take

5 ACTION. These aspects have been neglected. Schools, the media and the conservation community have not educated all its citizens and instilled an environmental awareness. Landscape conservation can succeed only if we create strong and true partnerships with the public: NGOs, universities, businesses, all branches of government, and above all the local communities. All the departments responsible for the development do not get along with departments and NGOs working for conservation of environment. It is a huge challenge, a never-ending conflict between development and protection. Many peoples have strong cultural and spiritual connections to the land. Once spiritual values were an integral part of the conservation dialogue. Reserves were often established for inspirations and esthetic reasons. The tiger has been preserved for its flaming beauty and powerful elegance, not because it is biodiversity. There has been a decrease of such spiritual content in the conservation message. Nature has become natural resources. Conservation talks mainly in economic terms, in dollar and rupees values. We ignore the precious intangible values by which humans also live. The Hindu goddess Durga rides a tiger to defeat evil. The saint Padmasambhava brought Buddhism from India to Tibet in the 7 th century while riding a tiger and three defeated the evil spirits. My point is that we must make wildlife both a resource of economic value and convey a spiritual vision, a set of moral values, without which conservation cannot sustain itself. Mahatma Gandhi wrote: It ill becomes of us to involve in our daily prayer the blessings of God, the compassionate, if we in turn do not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures. Conservation is the most difficult task of all this century. Keeping the earth alive is now our main business. We cannot afford another century like the past one. Luckily, we still have options. We must all fight for a nobler future, help shape new attitudes, and change habits and expectations. There must be a covenant with the land that decries compulsive consumption, waste and needless destruction. We have to adapt to an era of limits. We must treat the natural world with respect and devotion. But with clarity of purpose, passion, and perseverance we can retain much of the wonder and beauty of this planet. India is fortunate to have someone like Harish Salve to help lead the way.