The Vanishing Act - WWF-India

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Panda March 2005 Water Conservation in Kanha-Achanakmar Corridor WWF-India Help in Catching Poachers Continued from page 5 poacher/ traders were lured to Mandla District and arrested while attempting to sell the skins. Further investigations to recover more skins are in progress. In February, Ramesh Kumar Pandey, DFO Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, along with other members of his staff apprehended two women carrying a tiger skin and approximately 18 kgs of tiger bones. The seizure was made on board a train near Bichia Railway Station within the Sanctuary, while the contraband was being transported to Palia, a small town near the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. Further investigations are in progress. WWF- India Terai Arc Landscape Field Office at Pilibhit played a very important supporting role in making this seizure possible. 6 Data of water conservation structures in the Kharidih segment of Kanha-Achanakmar Linkage. WATER CONSERVATION STRUCTURES Stop dams Contour bunds Check bunds Canal Pond deepening Source: WWF-India project records the villagers have done mass plantations of species like neem, aonla, mango and tamarind in and around their houses and on the bunds of the fields. In a major drive, the existing ponds in the two villages have been deepened. These ponds are also used for breeding fish by the village development committees, under the alternative source of income generation scheme. The local inhabitants of Sargadhi and Kharidih are mostly from the primitive tribes of baigas and gonds. By nature they are very superstitious and are not open to development. Their crops are rain fed like most of the villages in our country and for them traveling long distances to fetch water for their daily need is their destiny they believe. It was hard initially to reach out to them and encourage their participation in different conservation efforts. Education and awareness programmes of the project have played an important role in motivating the local population. ‘Jal Chakra’ was one such example in which the participation of the village youth was incredible. Sargadhi now has its permanent cultural group for doorto-door campaigns on the importance of not only water but other issues as well. Today the villagers are more open and cooperative. They contribute in different activities by giving shramdan. It is most encouraging to see the enthusiasm of local people in the meetings where now they discuss the importance of water and give their suggestions on check dams, percolation tanks and soak pits. WWF has also ensured successful water conservation inside the Achanakmar Wildlife VILLAGE-KHARIDIH VILLAGE-SARGADHI 6 580 411 3 (Benefits 5 tolas or 400 people) 5 68 1km. (Benefits whole of Sargadhi) 2 (Approx. 40% of the people are dependent on it) Sanctuary for the wildlife there. Repair of the check dams Sahebpani, Bendramara, Saraipani and the Jalda and Nawapara ponds in the sanctuary has given fruitful results. Regular sightings of pugmarks of tigers and other wildlife near these water bodies give satisfaction that we are contributing to their well-being. Along similar lines, three more water reservoirs are being made in the Achanakmar Wildlife Sanctuary. Pond-deepening in Sargadhi village. Approximately 40 per cent of the people are dependent on this. Water has been aptly identified as a priority issue in the stakeholders’ meet while starting the tiger conservation efforts in WWF’s Satpuda-Maikal Landscape. Water conservation initiatives carried out by WWF in Sargadhi and Kharidih have definitely helped gain people’s confidence. There is hope to successfully replicate the interventions in other corridor villages of the project too. Needless to say, all this was achievable because of the cooperation of the Forest Department, WWF-India’s donors, its local partner in Bilaspur, and above all the involvement of the villagers. Neha Samuel / nsamuel@wwfindia.net WWF-India
Bharatpur People’s Participation in Conservation of a Wetland Heritage Site I n its simplest form participation means taking part, sharing and acting together—people s participation is nothing less than the basic texture of social life. Participation can take many forms ranging from partnerships, consultation and consensus-building to decision-making and risk-sharing, and increasingly require the involvement of stakeholders. Meaningful participation is a time consuming process, requiring patience, continued commitment and the willingness to put decisions about outcomes in the hands of participants. Such a process was put in motion to understand how people perceived their natural environment in the Keoladeo National Park—Bharatpur. Helping people understand the ecosystem and its value is the key role that education and communication plays. This has been recognized as a key role in various forums regarding wetland conservation. For instance, the Conference of the Contracting Parties (to the Ramsar Convention) has recommended that Contracting Parties place a high priority on the development and implementation of comprehensive proactive cross-disciplinary strategies which target both the formal school/university systems, and nonformal education of youth and adults across the broadest spectrum of the community Wetland—A Little Understood Concept If wetlands are to be preserved, they first need to be understood. Making people aware what wetlands are and their worth is a challenging task for two reasons. Firstly, it is difficult to change the existing misconception that wetlands are equivalent to wastelands. Secondly, even as a concept it is difficult to communicate wetlands. Wetlands are defined as areas where water is the primary factor controlling the environment and the associated plant and animal life. They occur where the water table is at or near the surface of the land, or where the land is covered by shallow water . Their ambiguous nature, being neither clearly land nor water, puts them between these two better understood categories. Moreover, the type and ecology of wetlands is so highly variable—out of 570 million hectares of wetlands, two per cent are lakes, thirty per cent bogs, twenty-six fens, twenty per cent swamps, and fifteen per cent flood-plains; mangroves cover some 240,000 km≤ of coastal area, and an estimated 600,000 km≤ comprises coral reef— that understanding them is difficult. But our education efforts also need to recognize that it is not as if every one is ignorant of wetlands, their values and their management. The local people know well when to fish and when not to; know how much catch the wetland will support and what will prove unsustainable; what should be done and what should not. They are a part of the wetland system, following the rhythm of the wetland. But this is often not recognized. Management regimes brought in to solve a problem, often exclude the local people, leading to more problems. For instance, when cattle grazing and grass collection were banned at Bharatpur, the grass grew unrestrained and started destroying the habitat! Our educational efforts need to draw from the very rich local knowledge, and add scientific and other data to fill the gaps, rather than ignore and be ignorant of the vast knowledge which exists. Participation Initiatives Recognizing the need to involve people—who are both the perpetrator and victims of the overexploitation of natural resources—the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), initiated in September 1993 a new and innovative project to build support for conservation through local participation, sponsored by the Overseas Development Administration of the United Kingdom. One of the oldest NGOs in India, BNHS is engaged in the study and research of natural history of the Indian subcontinent since 1883. Over the past four decodes, the BNHS has been active in spreading the message of nature conservation. The Society is well known for documenting the natural wealth of not only India but of other countries of the subcontinent. The Conservation Education Project (CEP) of the BNHS addressed through education and regular interaction, a major conservation issue— people living inside and around Protected Areas (PAs). This project involved local forest personnel, NGOs, tourists and concerned government WWF-India Panda March 2005 WWF-India WWF-India’s ‘Peoples’ Power’ Campaign WWF-India’s Climate Change and Energy Programme launched ‘Peoples’ Power’ campaign on 30 November 2004 at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. It was part of a WWF response to address the global warming crisis. The campaign was launched simultaneously in more than twenty countries across the globe on that day. The power sector is coal intensive and the single biggest contributor to global warming. ‘Peoples’ Power’ campaign was initiated to exert regulatory pressure on power companies to invest in renewable and efficient energy in order to reduce the emission of green house gases (GHG), prime contributors to global warming. The global campaign aims at cleaning up the power sector with public support. WWF-India’s Climate Change and Energy Programme is working to meet this goal with a twin pronged approach. In the first phase of the campaign, ‘Peoples’ Power’ will build public pressure through Civil Society Organizations on the Continued on page 8 7
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The Vanishing Act - WWF-India

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