India Environment Portal Knowledge for change

Conservation crunches

• 14/10/1995
• Down To Earth

LEFT to themselves in their respective domains of operation, humans and animals rarely enter into any kind of conflict that makes conservationists frequently ring the alarm bell or stir a hornet"s nest. So says Krishna B Ghimire, in his study Panda conservation and social development. a study based on an assessment of Wolong and otherpanda reserves in China, 1994. Ghimire is a resercher with the UN Research Institute for Social Development. In fact, it is only when illconceived management plans designed by organisations and individuals who have little insight into this rather simple human-nature relationship is put to practice, that this otherwise non- existent conflict actually takes form and shape, says Ghimire. He also believes that if plans are developed rationally and with the help of the local people, it is possible to bring about "social development" even while following the principles of conservation.

As the rest of the developing world has experienced, China has also experienced a multi-fold increase in the number ofprotected areas (PA). In fact, since 1965, the total area under protection has gone up from 0.07 per cent of the total area to 6 per cent by 1991, covering an area of 5,60,000 sq km - equal to the combined surface area of Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg and Switzerland! Ironically, most of the PAs are located in the eastern and the southern part of the country, where population densities are high and economic activities are continuously on the rise. As protected areas restrict human intervention, these parks are facing tremendous outside pressures; they are badly managed and according to Ghimire, are only "paper parks".

The panda reserves are, -however an exception. These reserves are China"s premier protected areas and have broadly come to symbolize the international conservation effort, thanks largely to its adoption as a logo for the Worldwide Fund for Nature. There are, therefore, strict laws and comprehensive legislations for these reserves: poaching of pandas can now receive a sentence ranging from short-term to life imprisonment and even capital punishment! Recently, there have been efforts to expand the existing panda reserves, which means incorporating surrounding forests and even settled areas into the reserves. Funds are available in plenty for the purpose, especially, since the West has always glamorised the protection of rare and exotic species protection. Of course, justification for the expansion of reserves becomes simpler as the pandas are portrayed as "nice looking" and "endangered", and also have an immense market appeal. The fact that perhaps the panda"s "endangered species" tag is based more on speculation rather than facts, is often ignored. What is also ignored is that in the somewhat missionary zeal to protect 11 one of our more notable and enjoyable fellow species", the authorities have totally disregarded the welfare and development of the people living inside these reserves, and have already charted out plans for their relocation without consulting them at all.

Ghimire however believes that the panda reserves in China provide a unique situation where one can witness the marrying of conservation with economic and social development of the local people. This is mainly because, unlike in other developing countries where people and animals compete for the same resources involving the same space and elevation, the people and the pandas of the Wolong Panda Reserve, on which Ghimire"s research findings are based, have since centuries had a mutually non "-conflicting resource use pattern. To facilitate the issue, the panda reserves are also extremely thinly populated - approximately 5,000 people reside in the 6,287 sq krn of area occupied by the total number of the panda reserves in the country. As such, it provides an ideal ground for exploring a more flexible, unorthodox, and people-ofiented conservation policy. The settlement and the forest structure of both Wolong and Gengda, the 2 townships within the Wolong reserve, are such that the people rarely come in contact with the panda, or compete with it for its resources. In fact, most villagers have never seen a panda in their life-time, that too in a reserve which houses 15 per cent of the world"s pandas, numbering 111, according to a 1992 study. This is because areas at different elevations are used for mutually exclusive purposes. The people reside in the valley floor and smaller agricultural fields, and some isolated settlements go up to a maximum heitht of about 6,000 ft. The mixed deciduous and evergreen forests, upto the elevation of about 7,500 ft are used for firewpod collection and grazing. The pandas are found only after this elevation, between about 7,500 ft to about 10,500 ft. Beyond this altitude, yaks are grazed and some medicinal plants are collected. People rarely venture into the panda area and pandas, being shy and recluse creatures, rarely descend down into inhabited areas. Yaks prefer the grasslands, and do not usually come down into the panda areas, except for a period of 2 to 3 months. This short interaction, according to the local people, benefits the pandas as it allows them to catch small calves and eat them during the bitter winters. Given this scenario, there is hardly any scope for conflict.

Next came the management plans evolved by the reserve authorities. Although it blames the people for the degradation of the panda habitat, Ghimire says that the problem actually ties in the zoning scheme of the plan. Logically, the core of the reserve should have been the areas where pandas live, Le the northern and southern part of the reserve. However, the plan has designated the N central Part of the reserve where human settle- ments exist - as the core. Obviously then, according to the plan, people need to be relocated. Again, the N allegations that the people use the resources of the reserve unsustainably, is k townft not tenable. Although their tesearch dependence on certain al panda resources are, what Ghimire calls, critical, the actual levels of resource abwt"y use have been quite low. 1975 Agricultural expansion has ceased. Medicinal plant extraction is allowed only for I month in a year. Timber re-quirements for constructing andirepairing of houses arise only once in a &w years. And hunting was never a problem, as pandas were never a target of t@e hunters. According to the elders of the settlements in and around the reserves, pandas are believed to be a sign of bad luck. On top of all, the biggest threat envisaged by the management plan , that of "inexorable population growth" - is actually a hollow cry of alarml. Population in the reserve has in fact, declined in the last few years, mainly due to migration.

Instead of spending whopping sums of money on relocation, which is also socially, environmentally and politically unnecessary, Ghimire suggests that the management plan should concentiate on bringing about social development of the Wolong people, while retaining the resource use pattern of the region, which is non-competitive and most sustainable under the present circumstances. To make conservation priorities more consistent with human needs, "all categories of protected areas must consider local extraction of resources that are renewable". Once a policy decision is taken to allow the people to stay inside the reserves, Ghimire promises that a whole set of options for a more development-oriented and socially useful conservation effort will emerge.

• Tags:
  • Protected Area Conservation
  • China

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