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Forest scraps

  • 14/10/2002

conflicts over grazing are nothing new to the Ranthambhore National Park (see also). There is a long history of strife and distrust between the forest departments and the villages surrounding almost all national parks in India. The central flaw is the forest officials' assumption that the villagers surrounding protected forests are enemies of the nation. Their reason: teeming villagers and their large, unproductive livestock are having a free lunch out of the little that remains of India's forest.

Let us, for the sake of assumption, accept this viewpoint, casting aside all moral, scientific and ethical scales. Then the task of protecting and conserving India's forests is doomed

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