To the Editor of Sanctuary Asia Dear Mr. Sahgal, It is with child-like glee that I received the Vol. XXXIV No. 3, June 2014 edition of the Sanctuary Asia Magazine today. It gave me immense pleasure to see the question that tormented me since we, the citizens of India, elected our now Honorable Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in the 2014 General Assembly Elections. Narendra Modis Development Plan? Will it hang Indias wildlife? Your letter to the Honorable Prime Minister, aptly citing the opinion of credible environmentalists, scientists and conservationists sounded to me as a petition with call for action, rather than a petition with prayer. Important aspects of bringing in prudent governance back in Project Tiger; highlighting the connection between natural ecosystem restoration, carbon sequestration and flood and drought control; presenting options to invest in power plants and dams by retrofitting turbines, improving transmission efficiency and reforesting watersheds rather than wanton coal-mining from tiger corridors such as the Greater Tadoba Landscape that erodes water security and increases human-animal conflicts; emphasizing the nexus between anti-national elements and wildlife traders, thus, creating the need to include wildlife trade into the radar of the National Security Council; were very well articulated and presented to our Prime Minister to enable him to understand the ill-effects of policy-making for short-term development. Expressing Sanctuary Asia’s dark fears over - the ‘sea-dam’ projects envisaged for the Gulf of Kutchh and the Gulf of Khambhat- Kalpasar, resulting in the decline of the Falmingo City & the Rann of Kutchh and the mass destruction of mangroves and the threat to Velavadar Sanctuary; forest loss and human displacement that will be involved in the linking of rivers; the imprudence of investing in new Himalayan Dams with melted or fastly melting glaciers that will supposedly make India a surplus energy nation; were a collective expression of many like me; who wish to see India prosper, but not at the cost of laying waste our fundamental wealth- our rivers, our forests and our wildlife. With all due respect to the need for being specific and concise – as is required while addressing the Prime Minister, there is still so much more that we have to fear – shrinking corridors, reducing grass-lands, disappearing wetlands & mangroves, excessive commercial demand for forest produce are still just a few… Our Prime Minister’s act of securing the future of Asiatic Lions in Sasan Gir, while he was the Chief Minister of the State of Gujarat is certainly an important and steady step in instilling confidence in individuals like me who have seen the steady growth of the population of Asiatic Lions in Sasan Gir. We hope that the same commitment shall be shown by him in this new chapter in India’s history. However, the reluctance of the Gujarat Government in translocating Asiatic Lions from Sasan Gir to Kuno-Palpur and the inability of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Madhya Pradesh Government to address human-animal and territorial conflicts that occur in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve due to high tiger density and lack of substantial corridors to allow interaction across meta-populations, sometimes reverses this confidence. Hence, it is my request to you, respected Editor, to keep the Sanctuary Asia Community, the Magazine’s Subscribers and the numerous wildlife & nature enthusiasts of this nation and abroad, abreast of the response that you receive from the Honorable Prime Minister’s Office on your letter. We, the citizens, gave the mandate… Now we, the citizens, need to know if India shall hold the mast of able governance in wildlife, as it did when it reversed the trend of decline in tiger population... as it did when we created Project Tiger… Yours Sincerely, Raghavendran Kandaswami
Posted on: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 05:41:03 +0000