Holocene year 2 issue 3

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

World after 5th Extinction Featured Topic : We are at….

WAR RISK (Concluding Part) :

Whose

Post Editorial Interrupted

:

Forest

Story Room : A day trip to “Sangam”

Arnab Basu

Theme Poster : Orangutan of Lawang, Sumatra

The Cold War The global arms race after 1945 produced incalculable accelerations of every tool of destruction. One of the smallest weapons, though multiplied almost countless times, has been the land mine. Some one hundred million unexploded antipersonnel mines remain around the planet, littering rural Vietnam, Afghanistan, and many other war-torn countries, grievously retarding the restoration of post-war farms, pastures, forests, and water regimes. These and a Pandora's box of other weapons have spread through many unstable regions of the post-colonial world—Africa and elsewhere. Grim contributions to wars both civil and trans-boundary, have also extracted a widespread ecological toll on forests, savannas, and farmlands.

Equally widespread, by the time the Cold War ended in 1990, long-term pollution effects of military industry left many locations severely poisoned. Weapons production sites and testing grounds in the United States required massively expensive clean-ups of a broad spectrum of toxic wastes. Even more appalling, large areas of Soviet and Eastern European land and air had become virtual wastelands, and even the Arctic Ocean, north of Russia was severely polluted. Chemical warfare reached a new level of destruction in the Second Vietnam War 1|Page

Editors’ Desk Forest is This!!

Bukit

(1961-1975), as the U.S. Air Force applied Agent Orange and other defoliants to the forests of Indochina.

In addition to fourteen million tons of bombs and shells, American planes sprayed fortyfour million litres of Agent Orange and twenty-eight million litres of other defoliants over Vietnam. The result was serious damage to 1.7 million hectares of upland forest and mangrove marshes, widespread soil poisoning or loss of soil, and destruction of wildlife and fish habitat.

Most potent of all in the post1945 years, the nuclear

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Finally, twentieth-century warfare has made a major contribution to warming of the global atmosphere. Military establishments consume great amounts of fossil fuels, contributing directly to global warming. The Persian Gulf War of 1991 was the most notorious case of atmospheric pollution in wartime, as the plumes of burning oil wells darkened skies for months, far downwind. It now seems that the fires caused less regional and global air pollution than was feared in their immediate aftermath, though they precipitated heavy pollution on nearby deserts, farmlands, and the Gulf's waters.

In the present state of research, there is a wide need for more studies of the long-term ecological legacies of warfare. The immediate impacts of conflicts are far easier to assess, especially, since the wars of the nineteenth century. But they do not necessarily represent the ecological or agro-ecological viability of the longer run, as this also reflects the great capacities of societies to restore damaged landscapes to productivity. The great marshes of southern Iraq are a dramatic recent example of restoration. In the aftermath of the Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein retaliated against the tribal sheikhs and Shia population of the south by diverting the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, turning some 90% of the marshes into a desert wasteland. After his overthrow early in the present Iraq war, a coalition of local people, private volunteer organizations and the United Nations Environmental Program began a program of re-flooding the marshlands. In spite of continued violence in the region, roughly one third of the marshes have been restored to something like their previous health for both the Marsh Arabs and the fecundity of fish, migratory birds, and other species. This example suggests, the long history of restoration work deserves greater emphasis than most of our narratives of wars' impacts acknowledge.

2|Page

- Lyndon B. Johnson President of the United States

“We must not only protect the country side and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities … Once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.”

technology became the most ominous environmental threat in history, though its greatest impact resulted from the peacetime armament race rather than from actual war. Until international nuclear-testing freeze conventions came into effect, weapons testing sites, such as Soviet sites in Central Asia and Britain's testing grounds in central Australia, became uninhabitable for almost all forms of life. And in the southern Pacific Ocean, islands and their coastal reefs, their civilian populations entirely removed by force, became unfit for life as a result of American and French nuclear weapons testing. Beyond that, in the nuclear industrial complex, many weapons production and storage sites became highly radioactive. In the United States, nuclear facilities in Washington state, Colorado, and elsewhere became radioactive sewers. Soviet nuclear weapons sites were even more radioactive.

“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it."

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

Editors’ Desk:

Whose Forest is This???

On 29th December 2006, an Act of Parliament, a path-breaking legislation, has received the assent of the President of India that acknowledges the injustice meted out to India’s forest dwellers, particularly tribes. The act is “The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006” popularly known as Forest Right Act, 2006. In the preamble of the law it was claimed that the act recognised the customary and historical rights of scheduled and non-scheduled tribe communities, who have been residing in forests in India but whose rights couldn’t be recorded earlier and undo the “Historical Injustice” done to the tribes and forest dwellers since pre-independence. FRA recognised that jungle dwellers have equal rights in the forests to the flora and fauna and they are an important and integral part of forests. The provision that was enshrined in FRA recognised that forest inhabitants would be involved in sustainable development, conservation of biodiversity and maintenance of the ecological balance, as they have a vast habitual knowledge on this. In that way, not only the rights were given to customary forest dwellers for usage of forest resources but also for its management and governance.

A Legislation, to be a successful one, requires other acts governing the similar subject and the spirit of state during implementation. It this case, neither has been witnessed. To understand the problem better, we have to go back decades ago.

The Forest policy of 1952 maintained that for the conservation and protection of forests, it was important to control the exploitation of the minor forest produce. When the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 was brought into action, situation got worse. It took all the forest lands under the control of the Union Government and still allowed the old colonial acts to play their parts in the name of good and development. It put the aborigines at the mercy of the bureaucratic system. Human residents of the jungle for centuries were not allowed to graze inside forest and allowed to collect even minor forest produce against high value permits. All their agricultural lands came under the forest, which was allocated before, now called off overnight. Along with those pro-colonial bureaucratic legislations, in the name of conservation, the commercialisation of forest made the situation even worse. Where they managed to live on minor forest produce paying high permit fees, were under tremendous exploitation by forest department bureaucracy and local forest contractors. Forest guards had a cut in minor forest products and the nexus of contractors and high ranked forest officers forced them to work for free, exploiting their illiteracy and poor economic condition. The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, was amended in the year 1999 and restricted the rights of the Natives in Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks, even further. Since the tribes were being exploited from all the sectors, it brought the indigenous together and a social movement uniting the tribes initiated, voicing their discontent with the present system.

3|Page

In an affidavit to the apex court in Jun 2004, Government of India, admitted to the historical injustice that have been levied upon tribes and cohabitants of the woods of the subcontinent started by WPA, 1972 followed by FCA, 1980 was in the name of environmental protection, as these acts were at loggerheads vis a vis recognising the rights of the tribes, an immediate need to address to the situation has arisen. Latter 2004 the National Advisory Council ultimately decided to find a solution to this problem once and for all.

After discussing with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and various Tribal Activist Groups, it was decided that a new legislation was needed to be formulated to recognise and protect the rights of Scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers.

With the enactment of FRA 2006, a radical shift of power and governance of the forest took place. FRA recognised the “citizens” of the jungle as an essential part in the conservation of forests. The locals of forest started taking part in decision making process, more and more, in regard to conservation of forest and they have been given access to forest resources to live on.

A process of sustainable development started.

Meanwhile, some other developments occurred. The FCA 1980 stipulated that forest lands could only be used for “non-forest” purposes like cultivation of tea, coffee, spices, rubber, palms, oilbearing plants, horticultural crops, medicinal plants or any purpose other than reforestation, against a compensatory afforestation of any other “non-forest” area. It deterred forest diversion by

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

putting a compensation value on forest resources calculated for a period of 50 years on the basis of the net present value of the diverted forest with cost of afforestation added to it. A Compensatory Afforestation fund Management and Planning Authority was, therefore, constituted in 2004 by a direction of apex court dated October 30, 2002. The ad-hoc CAMPA became operational when Supreme Court intervened in this matter again in 2006. The purpose of the CAMPA was to create a fund where all the payments received towards compensatory afforestation, additional compensatory afforestation, penal compensatory afforestation and net present value of the diverted forest land will be deposited. The net present value is the amount that someone has to pay for diverting forest land for non-forest purposes. The amount was to be determined by an expert committee appointed by the Centre and the CAMPA was to manage and utilise the same. It also directed that all the funds deposited on behalf of the CAMPA to other departments/state governments would be transferred to the account managed by the authority. But soon after the purpose of the CAMPA failed to perform. In the CAG report 2013, it was found that only 61% of the fund released by the CAMPA to authorities, had been utilised and in over a year the fund reached to 41,000 crores and kept in nationalised banks in the absence of a formal institutional arrangement. This led to the formulation of Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2015 and has been ultimately passed in upper houses of parliament in July 28, 2016.

traditional forest dwellers since colonial era. Question is not only how CAF rules take due cognisance of rules under FRA Act and uphold the right of consent of gram sabha, but it is also time for necessary administrative reforms of the forest department.

The government needs to see that over a period of time forest bureaucracy is oriented to acknowledge and appreciate that as public servants their role has to be subservient to requirement of gram sabha who governs the forest resources. Any lesser than this would be detrimental for implementation of both the acts, public resources and grassroots democracy.

With the implementation of the CAF 2015, again the recognition of rights of tribes and other traditional forest dwellers have been challenged. It was important to unlock this fund through proper institutional mechanism so that the funds could be routed back to the people, with whom forest rights were vested by the Parliament. But unfortunately, in the recently passed CAF bill, funds are being vested with forest bureaucracy in a way that it gives them absolute power to decide where and what kind of plantations will be done. On the other hand, the power vested with gram sabha for due consent in areas eligible for FRA has been conveniently bypassed. And here lies the problem. FRA shifted power out of the hands of the forest bureaucracy, and used a fair justice framework to give power back to the people on ground. Forest department registered its resistance to passage of FRA Act in 2006. Since the conflict between control exercised by forest department and rights of the people on their forest resources, goes back to colonial times and is deep rooted, this development needs to be seen beyond the dichotomy of political parties i.e. the ruling party and the opposition. The forest bureaucracy despite passage of FRA act, through Forest Development Authority and with Joint forest management (JFM) schemes tried to ignore the existence of FRA. Forest Development Corporations continued with their business of trading in non-timber forest produce; transit passes were required for people to take out their non-timber forest produce as usual; and on top of business as usual there has been continuous non-cooperation approach followed by forest department in settling rights under FRA. Now, with the enactment of CAF Bill 2015, the power is again being transferred to the forest bureaucracy, which was enjoying the overall control over forests of India and exploiting tribes and 4|Page

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

Post Editorial: Forest Interrupted

Dr. Arun Venkataraman

The proposed NanjangudNilambur railway track would affect the ecology of the region, disturbing the spatial distribution of grazing resources and movement of wild animals, opines Arun Venkataraman

(Originally published in Deccan Herald, 20th September, 2016. Republished in Holocene, after obtaining permission from author) Some recent reports state that the proposed revival of Nanjangud-Nilambur railway track, is the worst recurring nightmare that a conservationist can suffer. In a Kafkaesque scenario, the railway line will pass through the core area of Bandipur Tiger Reserve and National Park, disastrously dividing this landscape into two fragments and precipitating an ecological catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

Bandipur — along with the contiguous Nagarhole Tiger Reserve — provides 1,517 sq km of wildlife habitat and is part of a larger complex of tiger reserves and protected areas which include the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.

While the project still needs several approvals from national and state agencies, the mere concept of the project is worrisome. The proposed railway line will pass through Chikkabaragi Ecosensitive Zone and the Hediyala and the Moolehole ranges which are ‘inviolate’ core areas. This involves a track alignment of 22 km, out of which nearly 12 km pass through Bandipur and the remaining 10 km through the adjoining Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala.

State government and the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, have a mean number of 3,017 Asian elephants — which is 35% of the total number of elephants found in the contiguous Brahmagiri-Nilgiri and 14% of the national numbers. The reserves also hold nationally and internationally significant populations of other threatened and protected species such as the gaur and the Asiatic dhole, not to mention several endemic species of birds found along the Western Ghats.

The vegetation types here include Southern Tropical Dry, Deciduous and South Tropical Moist Deciduous Forests. They are characterised by intermittent patches of grasslands supporting a high ungulate biomass.

These grasslands play a vital role in keeping mega-herbivores such as elephants and gaur, dispersed across the park.

During the dry season from March to May, when water is scarce across most of the reserve, a large population of elephants and gaurs occupies the moist deciduous forests in Wayanad and the grass-laden banks of the Kabini reservoir nestled between Bandipur and Nagarhole. Large sections of the park are bone dry and devoid of mega-herbivores.

The track will nullify decades of conservation efforts, which have finally resulted in improved wildlife numbers. According to the National Tiger Conservation Authority, in its 2014 nation-wide population estimate, the entire complex is thought to hold a mean number of 570 Bengal tigers of which Bandipur and Nagarhole have 221 tigers. This accounts for more than a quarter of tigers within the country and is now considered the single largest population of tigers in the world. Given the precarious status of tigers elsewhere in Asia with several populations recently going extinct or on the brink of extinction, the importance of this population needs little justification.

With the advent of premonsoon, the entire area is transformed into a verdant pastureland. The change is sudden, with grasses flush in the area with a mere hint of increase in moisture in winds coming from the west! This flush moves down a northeast to southwest rainfall gradient.

Young grass tends to be far more nutritious and the megaherbivores move along the gradient seeking this.

In addition, both reserves are a part of the Mysore Elephant Reserve and, according to the 2012 estimate carried out by the

The need for making up for reduced nutrition in the dry

Population growth is good

5|Page

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

season is so intense that when one encounters elephants grazing in these flushes, they are seldom disturbed even if one were to drive into the midst of a herd.

Exploration Series – 7

Impediments on the way

Kolara Segment

If one were to assume that an overland track is eventually conceived and built, such dispersal of mega-herbivores would be seriously impeded. Raising sections of the track to permit movement through underpasses would require an intimate knowledge of the spatial distribution of grazing resources that fluctuate drastically from year to year. Herbivores take the shortest distance to reach resource to optimise energy usage, and this would lead to crossing of tracks and hence, high collision rates with trains. The impacts of an extended construction period would also be highly significant.

A large number of other threatened and protected mammals such as tigers, leopards, Asiatic dholes and sloth bears live in the area and it’s illogical to expect that all of them will restrict themselves to the usage of underpasses. Even with regulation of speeds and other restrictions on train passage we are likely to see colossal mortality through collisions. Solid waste discarded from trains, which unfortunately litters nearly all tracks in our country, would attract wildlife, further increasing chances of collisions. It is presently impossible to predict what impact the noise of trains is likely to have on the wildlife in the area. One must keep in mind that this is a pristine area which has had little human disturbance in the past, and probably with one of the highest mammal biomass in the country or even in Asia living under near ideal conditions.

The Wayanad area is largely agrarian and dominated by coffee plantations and other commodity crops. One wonders what trade this railway line will actually enhance. Furthermore, there are two types of traffic travelling between Wayanad, Mysuru and Bengaluru: commuters who work in these two cities and visit their homes in the Wayanad and Nilgiri areas for holidays or on weekends and those who holiday there during tourist seasons.

The volume of service offered by the state transport services of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and private transport companies should be sufficient to meet the needs.

Wagh Aala Patil

14th January 2017 09:00hrs : Nagpur to Kolara

by Road.

12:00hrs : Reach Kolara Kamp at Chimur.

14:00hrs : 1st Safari Kolara Gate.

at

18:30hrs : Return to Kolara Camp.

15th January 2017 06:30hrs : 2nd Safari Kolara Gate.

at

11:30hrs : Return to Kolara Camp.

14:00hrs : 1st Safari Kolara Gate.

at

18:30hrs : Return to Kolara Camp.

16th January 2017 06:30hrs : 2nd Safari Kolara Gate.

at

11:30hrs : Return to Kolara Camp.

14:00hrs : 1st Safari Kolara Gate.

at

18:30hrs : Return to Kolara Camp.

In fact, the High Court in Kerala rejected the project in 2013, astutely noting that “it is also pertinent to mention that there is road connectivity between these two places and it is not a case where other form of transportation is missing or unavailable.”

6|Page

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

Upstream on the Kaveri is the well-known Shivanasamudra Falls with its hydro-electric power station, which was set up already in 1902.

Story Room:

The water flows very fast through the gorge, gouging pits in the rocky riverbed. The climb down is steep and the rocks are slippery, making it very dangerous to swim in the

Arnab Basu

Mekedatu (Kannada: ) is a location along Kaveri in Kanakapura Taluk. Sangama is the place where Arkavati merges with Kaveri. From this point, about 3.5 kilometers downstream, the river Kaveri flows through a deep and narrow gorge. Mekedatu' means 'goat's leap' in Kannada). The name comes from an incident which is believed to be witnessed by herdsmen in that area a long time ago. It is said that a goat being chased by a tiger, made a desperate attempt to save its life by leaping from one side of the gorge and managed to cross over the raging river below, whereas the tiger did not attempt to replicate this feat, and abandoned the chase. The point where the goat leapt, has widened since then, from erosion caused by the river Cauvery. It is about 100 km from Bengaluru via Kanakapura.

There is also some mythological significance to this place (both Sangama and Mekedatu).

As per one version, the goat (meke) that is believed to have leapt across the Kaveri was Lord Shiva in disguise. On both rocky precipices of the gorge, one can find strange holes, whose shapes resemble goats' hooves, though several times larger. It is believed that only divine goats could have marked their 'footprints' in such hard rocks.

At Mekedaatu, the Kaveri runs through a deep, narrow ravine of hard granite rock.

The river, which is more than 150 meters wide at the confluence (at Sangama) flows through the hardly 10-meterwide gorge at Mekedatu. One can see the ferocious flow of all that water, displaying Bernoulli's theorem. It is said that a goat could leap over it, giving the falls the name Goat's Leap.

7|Page

river. Drownings continue to occur here, although people are warned about the danger by a small board and writings on the rocks.

A lot of tourists visit this place, a high number of people drown in the river, either while swimming or slipping off the cliff. It is a very dangerous place. The 4 feet shallow water is very deceiving as it seems harmless but has claimed the life of hundreds of people in the past years. The water current is very fast, and a person can drown in minutes.

Just a small slip might be fatal. There are also crocodiles in the water. The place lacks warning signs in several places, crocodiles and slippery surfaces make it one of the riskiest tourist spots. The rock surface near cliff, both during rainy season or during dry season, is very slippery and deceiving. Many of the deaths took away young lives of students, who ventured near the cliffs drown here.

From Kanakapura it is exactly 26 km. One has to drive more interior into the villages to reach this place. On the way there are boards showing directions to Mekedaatu and

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

Sangama, both are the same, it is just that one has to reach Sangama to go Mekedaatu.

For Team Exploring Nature

After reaching Sangama one needs to take a boat ride to reach the other side of the river and then can board a bus which keeps running every half an hour till 5 in the evening. 5.30 pm is the last bus from Mekedaatu to Sangama. After that no civilians are allowed in this place.

Editors’ Desk : Dwaipayan Ghosh Arnab Basu

One can also walk to Mekedaatu after getting off from the boat as it takes around 5 to 6 km to reach Mekedaatu from the Sangama if you don't want to board the bus.

Title & Logo Design : Arijit Das Majumder Saikat Chakraborty

On the way to Mekedaatu there is a fishing camp called Galibore Fishing Camp. So if someone misses the Mekedaatu board can reach by seeing this fishing camp board as well, because this is also on the way.

Newsletter Design : Dwaipayan Ghosh Arnab Basu

Review : Anwesha Ghatak

34 km south from Mekedaatu, one can also find Chunchi falls. The Arkavati (Kannada: ಅಕ ವ ) is an important mountain river in Karnataka, India, originating at Nandi Hills of Chikkaballapura district. It is a tributary of the Kaveri, which it joins at 34 km south of Kanakapura, called Sangama in Kannada, after flowing through ramanagara and Kanakapura. The river drains into the Chikkarayappanahalli Lake near Kanivenarayanapura.

Kumudavathi and Vrishabhavathi rivers are tributaries to this river. It forms Chunchi falls near Haroshivanahalli.

The river is used by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board to provide 135 million litres of drinking water per day to the city of Bengaluru, or about 20% of the entire city's water. As it is filtered in the nearby mountain aquifer, the water is fresh and crystal clear. The water is taken from two reservoirs built on the river, the Hesaraghatta (or Hesseraggatta), which was built in 1894, and the Tippagondanahalli Reservoir (or T G Halli), which was built in 1933. There is Manchanabele dam that is across the river further downstream.

8|Page

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in

Year – 2/Issue – 3/ November - December’16

Theme Poster

:: Orangutan of Bukit Lawang, Sumatra – Photo by Arnab Basu:

9|Page

E-mail: natural_destination@yahoo.com Website : www.exploringnature.org.in