Photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan
All rights reserved
Showing posts with label man-animal conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label man-animal conflict. Show all posts
An elephantine storm in a teacup
The Nature Conservation Foundation's EcoLogic blog has been around for some time now and its content is on my reading list. NCF does so well what other eco-research blogs fail to do - present great, relevant scientific information in a thought-provoking and easy-to-read way. Not to mention some high quality writing.
"An apology to the Iyerpadi gentleman", T R Shankar Raman's recent blog post on the problem of human-animal conflict, is a great example of science writing - the science is solid but not overwhelming, and it is extremely easy to read. If there are any J-school kids out there who want to take up a career in science writing (still a very, very nascent field here in India), this blog post is a mandatory cut-and-keep.
Raman (those close to him know him better as Sridhar) and his wife Divya work with NCF in Valparai. On this fragile but disturbed plateau in the Anamalais stand some of the last pristine Western Ghats rainforests, fragmented and continuously usurped by tea gardens and eco-tourism that's heavier on tourism than eco.
Tea gardens are not quite elephant-friendly - they offer little by way of cover, and the bushes grow densely. Elephants use ancient routes to water bodies, on which they depend. Of course, much has been changed (by humans) on these ancient routes. Ergo, the pachyderms occasionally trample through tea gardens and the settlements among them. The animals are also accused by local people of raiding their provision shops. While this, on occasion, has been documented as true by NCF researchers, investigations have shown that many 'raids' have been instances of villagers taking advantage of the situation at hand, and conveniently blaming the elephants. In a fragile and sensitive ecosystem such as that in Valparai, the conflict for space and resources between man and elephant is a screenshot of a larger systemic problem - proverbially, an elephantine storm in a teacup.
A leopard, a village and a photographer's conscience
From a respectful distance, I have always admired Kalyan Varma for his gift - the talent to tell stories and unravel mysteries through his wildlife photographs. But his coverage, in March this year, of a leopard trapped in the village of Valparai is sheer testament to the fact that this young man is no mere shutterbug collecting photographic souvenirs in our forests and trading them for awards. He is what wildlife conservation needs with utmost urgency -- a wildlife photojournalist with a conscience.
Not many people I know want to run into a leopard in the wild. So when one comes visiting a village, it is far from welcome. The leopard in this story was not above blame - it was responsible for the death of a young girl. It doesn't take much to anger a village and this killing provided ample tinder to fan a blazing hatred for the cat. A trap was set and the leopard was caught. The dramatis personae - villagers, forest officers, policemen and local press photographers - all played their part. The fallen hero, of course, was the leopard. What struck me about Kalyan's account was the irony of the 'shoot'. A veterinarian tries - first in vain - to bring the cat down, while all the while Kalyan clicks away feverishly, capturing through his trained eye the predicament of a wild animal that is down, but far from out.
In his journal, Kalyan writes: 'A tear rolled down its eye and the leopard slowly went down. I cocooned myself from the whole crowd as the cops were taking care of them and I could not see anything but the face of the leopard through the camera. I just broke down at this point and walked away.'
Read all about it here
Salut, Kalyan Varma. For boldly doing what no wildlife photographer has dared do before - for bringing out in detail the inexorable sadness of human-animal conflict.
Not many people I know want to run into a leopard in the wild. So when one comes visiting a village, it is far from welcome. The leopard in this story was not above blame - it was responsible for the death of a young girl. It doesn't take much to anger a village and this killing provided ample tinder to fan a blazing hatred for the cat. A trap was set and the leopard was caught. The dramatis personae - villagers, forest officers, policemen and local press photographers - all played their part. The fallen hero, of course, was the leopard. What struck me about Kalyan's account was the irony of the 'shoot'. A veterinarian tries - first in vain - to bring the cat down, while all the while Kalyan clicks away feverishly, capturing through his trained eye the predicament of a wild animal that is down, but far from out.
In his journal, Kalyan writes: 'A tear rolled down its eye and the leopard slowly went down. I cocooned myself from the whole crowd as the cops were taking care of them and I could not see anything but the face of the leopard through the camera. I just broke down at this point and walked away.'
Read all about it here
Salut, Kalyan Varma. For boldly doing what no wildlife photographer has dared do before - for bringing out in detail the inexorable sadness of human-animal conflict.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)