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“You try to protect only the things which either you value or love” …
Fortunately, when the subject is forest, wildlife nature then I don’t have to search for appropriate quote but I myself have so much of them & this is not for boosting my own knowledge but to let you know that when you love nature or value it then it blesses you in so many ways, that being able to think & express above words is just one example! And International Forest Day , 22nd of March which is celebrated a day after World Sparrow Day, 21st of March are two such opportunities for my sharing! This year’s Forest Day theme is “Forests and Innovation: New Solutions for a Better World” & though there is no theme (to my knowledge) for the Sparrows yet we can invent one, as that is also part of the Forest Day, going by its theme! Let’s first understand what this theme of Forest Day means as Innovation, Solutions for better World, is nice catchy slogans but usually such slogan’s life is only for that year & as the dates fade so does the words of the slogans is what I feel & if you think it's sarcasm then tell me theme line of last year’s Forest Day (without googling)! Well, it was Forest & Health , making healthy forests for healthy people & if you can link these two themes then this year’s theme is like a sequel of last year’s theme of Forest Day. Because if you want to make forests healthy then you need to come up with innovative solutions for a better means of a healthy world, now you got it, I hope!
Coming back to the theme of Forest Day but before that, something about those who don’t know about Forest Day (read as doesn’t bother about forests) The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21 March the International Day of Forests in 2012 to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests around the world. Countries especially developing ones & underdeveloped are encouraged to undertake local, national, and international efforts to organize activities involving forests and trees, such as tree planting campaigns are carried out on this day!
And here is where the importance of this year’s Forest Day theme is more, because in developed countries already most of the forest cover is gone & so has the wildlife; take example of entire Europe or Japan where hardly any wildlife exists! Do mind, green cover does matter but just trees or plantation doesn’t mean forest (this is my way of looking at it) but where entire life cycle exists from trees, grass, shrubs, creepers, water bodies to insects to big hunters like leopard & tiger or lions, that I will call as forest & our country fortunately is blessed with all these! This is why Forest Day’s importance for developing & under-developed countries is more as we still have something to save still but we won’t be able to save the forests naturally & that’s why innovations are important. Over the decades & centuries, the human population has been constantly increasing because of the innovations we have done to make our life comfortable & healthy & now it’s time we must use innovations for making the life of the forests healthy as forests on their own can’t save themselves, is a fact! And when we say life of the forest's healthy, it means making life of the people in & around healthy & for that we must start from forest dept itself which includes making them feel important as then only they will love their job to protect forests. Unfortunately, from budget provision to infrastructure, barring few blue-eyed forests like tdaoba, forest dept is ignored or neglected in comparison to other govt depts, is a fact! And result is the actual working staff of the forest dept are not taken proper care, though people do join the service as it’s a govt job but that’s all, neither they love their job nor they are able to make common people love forests or protect them, first accept this lacuna, is the start of the solution for making forests healthy! I move around in many forests & speak to guards or forest labours & their situation while working in the field is bad, right from stay conditions in the forests to basic infrastructure regarding vehicles or life protection weapons everything is below par & yet we expect them to protect forests! And if you don’t trust my words the go to any forest & try living along with forest guards, as agreed they know this while joining the dept & many will say situation is worse of Country’s border but look at the support & infrastructure (and respect also) the military man gets & look what forest guard gets, then you will realize the difference! Even the top-ranking officers of the forest dept (IFS cadre) are always kept under their own parallel rank services such as IAS as forest depts top boss has to report a revenue dept officer from same cadre, but why a revenue officer IAS is not supposed to report an IFS officer, if we want to put forests above all things, is the question we should ask. Here I am not discriminating between the depts but if you appoint an IFS office to protect the forests then all the decisions related to forests including budgets must be put under that office is common sense, right? You can have a revenue (IAS) officer as an auditor for forest works but, definitely not as a top boss or final authority for every decision related to forests; is what I feel, if we want to make forests healthy, as it’s a job of professionals!
At the same time the forest dept also must give up their “we know the best” approach towards the forests as indeed they wear Khaki & has authority in the forests but forest is an ever-evolving ocean of knowledge by itself & nobody can claim that he or she knows everything about the forests! And when the subject is of forests & people around the forests then the forest dept must be open or say welcome to the Innovations or Solutions given by other persons too, which rarely happens! As when we can’t provide proper infrastructure to the forest dept itself, how can we expect to come up with the right things for people who live in & around the forests! Outcome is, our Hon Judiciary (Courts) always come down heavily on the systems which supposedly manage the forests & the only way they know is, to ban or stop wildlife tourism which is actually the only way we have, to protect the forests! Technology use is important but first decide what & how we will be using the technology for as the world is going to AI but do mind nature is way beyond any intelligence & all we can do is learn from it to protect it instead of just going for technology. You can get intimation of arrival or approach of wild animals like tigers near human settlement with AI but why such need arises for the tiger to leave its forest & enter into some village, is the outcome of wrong use of our knowledge, mind it!
And now imagine if we don't provide enough infra or apply our minds for forests then who will think about a non-entity species like a sparrow! As we have literally driven the sparrows away from every town & city under the name of progress, growth, or development because all we think is about our needs & our comforts (read as human’s) & what about giving space or needs of species like sparrows, who will do that & we celebrate Sparrow Day, which is like “Jale pe Namak Chidkana,” means applying salt on the wound! Sparrows need spaces for making their nests, they need little privacy, they need some water, they need some grains as their food, they need little earth (dust, clay) for their dust bath & we have taken away every of above these basic needs & we think by celebrating Sparrow Day we can get the sparrows back, fools we are!
Lastly on my recent FB post (that’s all I can do) about recent death of a male tiger from some project tiger’s neighbourhood, few readers (of-course from developed countries) wrote why can’t we control birth rate of tigers if their population is growing or why can’t we relocate it to balance their population in a particular area to reduce man-animal conflicts! Well, keeping due respect to their sentiments, this shows our ignorance about wildlife & forests as if at all we need to control is, not the birth of tigers but birth of the humans & if we want to make more space available to the tigers (read as wildlife) then in our planning we must accommodate some part for forest & we must educate all the humans to live in harmony with the wildlife, there only lies hope for good health of the forests!
The best solution to protect forests & make them healthy is, sharing the knowledge & use it jointly without decrementing among ourselves means, we may be from any fraternity such as forest dept, revenue dept, NGO, private sector, researchers or even a house wife but we all need to come together & join hands for one cause & that platform is missing, so let’s take this as first step, on Forest Day 2024, adios with this note!!
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
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