Indian Wildlife Club Forum

This village has no electricity, no transport or even the basic medical facilities.  “People here either depend on wood smuggling or prawn seed collection for livelihood.  The first encroaches into tiger territory, while the second completely disrupts the ecological balance of the area, because the salinity of the waters is affected due to excessive prawn seed poaching” says Kakoli Banejee, assistant coordinator of the Sunderbans landscaping project, WWF. 

WWF have also provided the village with tillers, solar-powered spice grinding machines, deep tube wells and medicinal plant gardens for sustenance.  Children have formed nature clubs and teach the parents the importance of saving the tiger.

There are countless villages close to national parks, who need these facilities for creating an alternative income source far from exploiting the forests.  A case in pont would be Kailashpuri, near Ranthambore National Park.  Our short film “Living With the Park” gives voice to the problems faced by displaced villages.  You can read a synopsis of the film at http://www.wildscapes.net/cd_synopsis.aspx

( Details of Chhoto Mollakhali from India Today dated 6 November 2006)

Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) is developing a network of wildlife rehabilitators working in India who would like to rehabilitate distressed wildlife through Emergency Relief Network (ERN).

ERN is an association of team of people whose expertise on the skill of rehabilitation can be utilised to reach out to rehabilitators in different parts of the country.

WTI have created a online community / group in which the rehabilitators can send in information and interact with each other. If selected as a member, your name will be included in the group list to get updates on ERN news.

This team of trained rehabilitators, of people and organizations, can exchange, share and contribute their knowledge and professional skills to save wildlife for the cause of conservation.

If interested in joining the network, write to Dr. Prajna Paramita Panda, for a registration form. Dr. Panda can be contacted at wren@wti.org.in

or at the postal address mentioned below

 Wildlife Trust of India

ER Network

C/o Dr. Prajna Paramita Panda

A-220, New Friends Colony,

New Delhi - 110025

Two Indian films have made it to top awards at the prestigious "Wildscreen" Film Festival at Bristol, U.K.

These are

NEWS AWARD

 Last Dance of the Sarus

Global Broadcast News Pat. Ltd (India)

WILDSCREENS AWARD TO PROMOTE FILMMAKERS FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Cherub of the Mist

 Bedi Films (India)

A workshop on `Rising stakes of local community in conservation of forests and wildlife: Institutionalisation of eco-tourism involving local communities' was organised by the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and sponsored by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests at the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Thekkady.

Senior IFS officers noted that though a few States had come out with their own policies on eco-tourism, a national level policy was necessary to address the ecological needs of the forest and environment, create people's involvement giving due regard to their ethnicity and culture so that they feel involved, promoted and empowered. Such a policy would ensure that eco tourism programmes were not hijacked by vested interests.

The forests of the country were burdened with biotic pressure coming from the traditional dependency of the local communities. The traditional type of forest management deprived the local people of any significant stake and role in the protection of the forests. Eco tourism, being a non-consumptive use of the forests, was emerging as an important alternative to strengthen the stakes of local communities for the protection of forests and wildlife.

The officers wanted eco tourism programmes to find a place in forest management and working plan provisions. The thumb rules for an eco tourism programme should be minimum investment on infrastructure, maximum benefit to the local communities, a link between the programme and the local communities and respect to local culture and traditions.

 It was recommended that in ecologically sensitive areas, the principle of high value, high adventure and low volume tourism should be followed.Local communities should have a major role in the implementation of any eco-tourism project. Draft recommendations for a national policy for the implementation of eco-tourism programmes in forest, wildlife and other natural eco-system areas in the country were adopted

Sorce: http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/04/stories/2006100409910400.htm

A workshop on `Rising stakes of local community in conservation of forests and wildlife: Institutionalisation of eco-tourism involving local communities' was organised by the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and sponsored by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests at the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Thekkady.

Senior IFS officers noted that though a few States had come out with their own policies on eco-tourism, a national level policy was necessary to address the ecological needs of the forest and environment, create people's involvement giving due regard to their ethnicity and culture so that they feel involved, promoted and empowered. Such a policy would ensure that eco tourism programmes were not hijacked by vested interests.

The forests of the country were burdened with biotic pressure coming from the traditional dependency of the local communities. The traditional type of forest management deprived the local people of any significant stake and role in the protection of the forests. Eco tourism, being a non-consumptive use of the forests, was emerging as an important alternative to strengthen the stakes of local communities for the protection of forests and wildlife.

The officers wanted eco tourism programmes to find a place in forest management and working plan provisions. The thumb rules for an eco tourism programme should be minimum investment on infrastructure, maximum benefit to the local communities, a link between the programme and the local communities and respect to local culture and traditions.

 It was recommended that in ecologically sensitive areas, the principle of high value, high adventure and low volume tourism should be followed.Local communities should have a major role in the implementation of any eco-tourism project. Draft recommendations for a national policy for the implementation of eco-tourism programmes in forest, wildlife and other natural eco-system areas in the country were adopted

Sorce: http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/04/stories/2006100409910400.htm

"Yury Trutnev, Russia's natural resources minister said, Russia is still in two minds about whether to revive a controversial Soviet-era plan to divert Siberian rivers to the arid Central Asia." (MOSCOW, October 12 RIA Novosti)

European Union directive defines every water catchment area as a distinct management unit and rules out water transfers from one area to another. On the 18th of June, 2004  Spain repealed the project to divert water from the river basin, that had been included in the Hydrological Plan pushed forward by the previous Popular Party government and justified by the lack of water in some areas of Spain.

In China, Three Gorges Dam Project is about to be complete.  After the rise in water level, the estimate of displaced may cros  1.4 Million People. 

 Courtesy WaterWatch@yahoogroups.com

For an ecologically sensitive film maker, films are a medium of communication and the communication process is not completed until the message is delivered to the proper audience and feedback (positive or negative) is garnered.

With internet sites like youtube.com for free distribution and turnhere.com for paid distribution, the age of low cost film making seems to have arrived for wildlife film makers.

And making your work available for free download on the Net does not preclude you from also selling an easy-to-access version at a reasonable price (say Rs 200-300) for home viewing. You get the mindshare and publicity, and you also have a (modest) revenue stream.

Hamburg(Germany) zoo director Dr. Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck and British elephant trainer Alan Roocroft teach keepers and handlers how to care for elephants in captivity-at the First European elephant Management School.

Here, elephant handlers from around the world come together for nine days every year to learn about the needs of elephants in captivity and how to overcome their own apprehensions. Many participants may have been working with elephants for years, but few have actually touched them, felt a young elephant's unruly bristles or stroked the bumpy skin at the tip of its wet nose.

Elephants will be kept at zoos as long as zoos exist. Currently around, 1,700 are in captivity, 1,000Asian elephants and 700 African ones. Many zoos cannot give elephants the care they require because they lack both space and money. Foot care, Trunk rinses and taking blood and urine samples to determine hormone levels are standard procedures.

 Elephant handlers from all over the world flock to Hagenbecks in November every year to learn what makes zoo elephants happy!

Here is an excerpt from a report in the New York Times dated 28 September 2006.

Wind power may still have an image as something of a plaything of environmentalists more concerned with clean energy than saving money. But it is quickly emerging as a serious alternative not just in affluent areas of the world but in fast-growing countries like India and China that are avidly seeking new energy sources. And leading the charge here in west-central India and elsewhere is an unlikely champion, Suzlon Energy, a homegrown Indian company. ...

Roughly 70 percent of the demand for wind turbines in India comes from industrial users seeking alternatives to relying on the grid, said Tulsi R. Tanti, Suzlon's managing director. The rest of the purchases are made by a small group of wealthy families in India, for whom the tax breaks for wind turbines are attractive.

Wind will remain competitive as long as the price of crude oil remains above $40 a barrel, Mr. Tanti estimated. To remain cost-effective below $40 a barrel, wind energy may require subsidies, or possibly carbon-based taxes on oil and other fossil fuels.

Looking to devise a special attraction during the eighties, the Punjab Zoo's administrators created a unique hybrid species by cross-breeding Asiatic and African lions. Less well-known than its African cousin, the Asiatic lion is slightly smaller and has a less shaggy mane. It is close to extinction in the wild: there are only some 300 left, and the only place they are found is the Gir national park in India.

On paper, the cross-breeding programme looked fine...................

But when their cubs were born, it became clear that all was not well. The hybrid lions were all born with severely weak hind legs. They could barely walk. It got worse: as the years went by, many of the hybrids' immune systems began to fail..........

Read the full story at the link

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1616628.ece