The second half of the 20th century marked a remarkable spurt of nature conservation activity in independent India. The 1970’s marked a period of energetic consolidation and strengthening of wildlife laws and environmental regulations. Importantly, the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 marked a watershed in the way Indians perceived, experienced and protected nature. There was also a steep, almost triple-fold increase in wildlife sanctuaries and national parks from 194 in 1980 to 578 in 2002. Prominent among the new initiatives was Project Tiger, a government programme to step up protection of the endangered Bengal tiger across the country.

Since those early times, however, the fast changing economic conditions, altering democratic frameworks and new ecological stresses created, necessitate a deeper understanding of the conservation successes and failures We took up this task in this edited book whose central aim is to assess the ability or inability of conservation laws and policies to safeguard and protect natural ecosystems in India. We also wanted to explore the institutional, political and social constraints in meeting ecological goals, especially given our long history of conflict not just between wildlife and humans but also amongst various strata of Indian society.

The Forest Conservation Act (1980) was created to safeguard forest areas from other uses by creating a rigorous clearance process for any proposed diversion. The Wildlife Protection Act gave as much power to the Union Government as to the states in the decision-making and enforcement of anti-hunting laws.

Yet, such an emphasis on strong rules, centralised authority, and the creation of inviolate spaces inevitably led to pushbacks. One of the major issues that later came to haunt nature conservation was the largely coercive displacement of villages from within Protected Areas (PAs), such as National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries, to create people-free spaces. Such social dislocation ignored the socio-economic and political costs of doing so. The increasing restriction of public access to forest resources in PAs, necessitated by the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) only added to local communities’ hardships. For instance, local residents faced reduced incomes from forest-based livelihoods, which was only intensified by their vulnerability to wildlife-caused damage. The new policies, seen as centralizing authority in a federal system, invited resistance from provincial governments as well. State governments saw as an obstruction to development and natural resource extraction, and to growth of state revenues.

The strengthening of conservation laws in the last decades of the 20th century took place precisely in the same period when such centralization was being challenged by demands for a greater degree of local and regional self-government from forest workers, village panchayats and even well-established local forest institutions. The 1990’s and 2000’s saw a marked spread of rights-based approaches to social inclusion in India, in parallel with the observed growth and entrenchment of wildlife bureaucracies and programmes. The amendment to the Panchayat Raj Act in1992 which strengthened local self-government, and more recently, spread of legislation such as Right to Information Act (2005) and Forest Rights Act (2006), sought to redress citizens’ grievances on a range of issues, such as land ownership, access to forests, benefits transfers, education and health facilities and provide a more active role to people in governance.

Against the backdrop of conflicting claims on natural resources, economic liberalization starting in 1990, further complicated the challenges to the biodiversity, due to escalating demands for minerals, fossil fuel, land, and water, and energy. The quest for these resources, to serve unabated consumerism and urbanization, soon brought development and conservation into a serious confrontation by 2000s. Industry, urban spaces and infrastructure encroached parks, forests and water bodies and put unrelenting pressure on remaining wildlife habitats.

Both liberalization and wildlife conservation had irreversible effects on the way natural resources would be controlled and used; and they led to growing marginalisation of tribals, forest workers and fisher folk.

There were other exigencies that inspired this book: As of now, there are very few books that attempt expressly to bridge the sciences-humanities divide in understanding conflicts over nature. For this edited volume, we brought together scholars and practitioners who are working in the area of nature conservation from different perspectives. From the historical perspective, too, this volume occupies an important place. There do exist a number of treatises but they are on isolated aspects of the wildlife protection trajectory. For instance, the early role of Indira Gandhi in wildlife protection and Michael Lewis on the politics of Project Tiger in India starting in the 1960s. So far there is little published that deals with the period of 1985-2015 during which significant changes were unleashed through the country-wide economic reforms process. The influence of such large-scale economic and social changes on the status of nature or wildlife conservation remains largely unstudied, despite their immense spatial scale and intensity.

Our volume also extends the understanding of the impact of conservation policy to an array of ecosystems and landscapes, both inhabited and largely wild, including freshwater wetlands, high-altitude alpine forests, coastal zones, urban forests and tropical rainforests, and in a frame that includes not only all forms of life but also the immense and sometimes intangible ecosystem services that they provide. For instance, Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon look at the regulatory laws on coastal ecosystems which impinge on marine conservation. In ‘Hunting stories and Shady tales,’ Archana Bali and Kartik Shanker look at the impact of wildlife conservation and tree preservation laws in the coffee plantations of the Western Ghats, a heretofore unrecognised but significant habitat for wildlife. Ambika Aiyadurai explores the challenges of implementation of the Wildlife Protection Act in the remote hills of Dibang in north-eastern India, using an anthropological lens to understand the constraints at a very local scale.

We also examine in this book whether developments in the ecological and conservation sciences are entering policy formulation and field implementation in adequate ways, and whether spreading knowledge of conservation science in civil society and the media have been able to spark new directions for public debate and social protest. I look at the role of science in conservation action as played out in the government proposal to bring back the Asiatic cheetah back to the Indian grasslands, showing how science is often used as a political tool, rather than as a realistic means to recover ecosystems and species. In another article, Neha Sinha looks at the shortcomings in the legal definition of wetlands which is fraught with lack of understanding of their ecology and ecological roles. Such poor understanding has significant implications for real-time conservation, for public perception as well as the priorities of local government. Meghna Agarwala applies quantitative methods to assess the impact of long-term forest produce extraction on dry deciduous forests in Central India, showing the problems in simplistic approaches typically used in forest management.

Of particular import to conservation effectiveness is the role of institutions- both state-level as well as highly local- which have shown inconsistent trajectories lately. In an increasingly urbanising country, and after several years of agrarian distress, rural and forest-dependent people find some long-standing attachments and knowledge related to forest and field being disrupted. This is being manifested in weakening of community-formed institutions at the local level which were earlier managing resources sustainably. In this volume, Rinki Sarkar explores the threats to regeneration of chilgoza pine forests in Western Himalayas in an era of weakening forest institutions. In a similar vein, the long-term changes in community and state-owned forests in Jaintia hills of Meghalaya are juxtaposed by Rajkamal Goswami and T Ganesh in this book.

Moving from local to governmental institutions, a retrenchment of positions has been very much the case despite years of training, better scientific knowledge and greater involvement in even state-level policy and implementation, since independence. M. Vikas takes a historical view of the people-park relationship in and around Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in Delhi, to show how forest-dependent pastoral people have been marginalised with the ingress of urbanisation, mainly due to the rigid protection ethos of the forest bureaucracy.

Nature Conservation in the New Economy is an exposition of the ways in which the protection of nature, a largely state-led project in the initial decades after Indian independence, has become a realm where science, social concerns, and governmental regulations, more often than not, collide. The issues brought up by the authors in this edited volume will hopefully inspire many more such in-depth locale-specific analyses that can help to uncover the conflicts and constraints of nature conservation in India, from which we can learn.

Further Reading
Bindra, P.S. 2017. The Vanishing, India’s Wildlife Crisis. Penguin-Random House, India. Pp. 326.

Shahabuddin, G. 2010. Conservation at the Crossroads, Science, Society and the Future of India’s Wildlife. Permanent Black, Delhi
and New India Foundation, Bengaluru. Pp. 288.

Shrivastava, A. and A. Kothari. 2012. Churning the Earth, The Making of Global India. Penguin Books, New Delhi, Pp. 394, xxi.

Slow lorises are small, nocturnal primates that occupy a wide range across southern Asia including western Indonesia, parts of India, Myanmar, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The first time I saw a slow loris, I was across the world in landlocked Denver, Colorado, browsing YouTube on my couch when a recommended video appeared depicting a cute, furry mammal with giant eyes. Before me, an owner of an illegal pet slow loris proceeded to “tickle” the animal while it threw its arms up and stared deeply into the camera with its large pouty eyes. This video led to another video depicting a slow loris holding a cocktail umbrella, a slow loris eating a rice ball, a slow loris being brushed.
How had an animal that only exists on the other side of the world end up in someone’s home in the U.S. being filmed, laughed at, and cooed over?

Journey of a Captured Slow Loris
The journey of the slow loris begins in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Primates are among the most ubiquitous species affected by illegal wildlife trade, with the slow loris being under extreme pressure due to their high demand as pets. There are five species of slow loris that are generally recognized, and all five are currently listed as either endangered or vulnerable. Since 2007, every one of these species has been banned for international commercial trade in the United States. Despite this ban, and aided by a lack of initiative from law enforcement and a lack of international awareness, slow lorises remain endangered and the demand for them remains high.

This high demand for slow lorises motivates poachers and hunters to collect the animals from their natural habitats to sell into the black market. Because the slow loris is small and lightweight, it can be easily transported in baskets, boxes and sacks, with some accounts even mentioning them being tied to poles or sticks. If the animals are destined to be sold at local markets, this journey is often short but extremely stressful. Other slow lorises are prepared for international transport – a lengthy journey that often has extremely poor conditions. These animals are reported to have high levels of transport-associated health problems such as stress, injuries, dehydration, and exhaustion.

While a complete picture of mortalities of captured slow lorises has not been well described, the physical and behavioral impacts of the illegal wildlife trade on slow lorises is devastating. In a 2018 study following 77 greater slow lorises who were confiscated from the illegal trade and brought to Cikananga Wildlife Center in Indonesia, 28.6 percent of the total slow lorises and 100 percent of infants died within six months of capture. Of the surviving slow lorises, 25.4 percent displayed abnormal behavior. Reports from rescue centers consistently demonstrate these high mortality rates and high rates of abnormal behavior from primates rescued from the wildlife trade.

As the only venomous primate in the world, handling slow lorises involves a presumed risk when humans get close enough to pose a threat. To create their venom, the slow loris mixes oil from the brachial gland in their mouth, then uses their powerful toothcomb (long, flat front teeth arranged like a comb) to inject that venom into their victims. Due to this venomous nature, traders frequently clip the slow lorises sharp lower teeth that create this toothcomb, both to protect their handlers from bites and to make the animals better suited as house pets. The teeth are often removed with wire cutters, nail clippers, or pliers, and many animals die from infection after the process. To a slow loris, having these teeth removed is life changing. The toothcomb is a vital defense mechanism, but it is also used for grooming, socializing with other lorises, and gouging for gum; a staple in the wild loris diet.

After all of this turmoil and stress, the slow lorises that survive these rigorous conditions are sold in the marketplace or auctioned off on the internet. Unable to ever be released back into the wild, these animals are destined for a life of captivity in a private home, as “photo-props” for tourists. The lucky few that are rescued spend the remainder of their days in rehabilitation centers.

But how did this once unknown primate indigenous to southeast Asia become such a desired worldwide phenomenon? The increasing use of the internet and the access it provides has allowed this species to be shared and traded in ways that were never possible in the past.

Wildlife Trade in the Age of Social Media
The owning of wild animals for companionship and entertainment has been a part of human culture throughout history. Records of a diverse range of exotic companion animals date back to both Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman culture. However, demand for these exotic animals has increased exponentially with the use of the internet and social media, which is now becoming the medium of choice for illegal wildlife traders. And slow lorises are one of the most well-known faces of this internet-driven craze.

Online videos of slow lorises frequently show them in close proximity to humans – wearing clothes, or using human-made props. This viral domestication creates the illusion that they make suitable pets, and overlooks the devastating fact that the slow loris species is both threatened and endangered. Online viewers often comment “how cute” and ignore their ecological and biological needs, causing misconceptions about the animal to form and grow. What viewers think is “cute” i.e. raising their arms, clinging to a cocktail umbrella, or eating strawberries, is in fact them displaying response actions related to high stress, such as defensive movements, crouching, mouth folding, freezing, attacking, scratching, or vocalizing. In these online videos, the primal responses of the slow loris are skewed and depicted instead as the animal being ticklish, singing or smiling. These videos normalize and glorify exotic and cruel pet ownership.
Celebrity social media accounts have added an additional element in the glorification of owning exotic pets such as the slow loris. In the tickling video, there were over250 comments about how the viewer discovered the video because of a celebrity promotion. In 2013, pop icon Rihanna Instagrammed a picture with two illegally traded pygmy slow lorises in Thailand. When celebrities blatantly ignore laws banning ownership of illegal animals and openly share content depicting wild animals in captivity, their followers may view their actions as acceptable.

People push boundaries to appear adventurous on social media. Therefore, tourist attractions involving direct physical contact with wild and exotic animals are becoming more prevalent, particularly using captive wildlife as photo props. Many people that fall for these tourist traps do not know that most of these animals were obtained illegally, are privately owned, and often live in poor conditions not suited to their needs.

Slow lorises, particularly, are often misidentified by hashtags on Instagram as a lemur, monkey, or bushbaby, showing that many tourists do not know what animal they are posing with, let alone anything about its ecology or conservation status. Additionally, 17 percent of slow loris photos on Instagram showed the nocturnal animals paraded in bright daylight, and 62 percent of the photographs featured the slow lorises dressed in clothing. A further investigation into one of these tourist traps in Marmaris, Turkey showed the nocturnal animals being photographed awake during the day or with flash photography during the night which can be damaging to the slow loris’ light sensitive eyes and cause health problems from the disruption of natural sleeping patterns. They were also being stored behind a small DJ booth, and being fed unsuitable foods including fruit wedges taken from cocktails.

The future of the slow loris may seem bleak after learning how these animals are used for entertainment both at home and as tourist attractions, but there is still hope for a better life for many of these small primates. The living conditions of these slow lorises are a result of both lack of knowledge and lack of empathy for these smaller beings. However, the path to a better future for these animals and many others begins with educating the general public and promoting positive changes in consumer behavior. And that can start with us.

What Can You Do
A majority of us do not own exotic pets or even know anyone who does, but that does not mean we are not actively participating in the promotion of exotic pet ownership. Taking selfies with wildlife for social media likes promotes the idea that these animals are well-suited to be around humans. Even if the animals are legally owned, in the wild, in a rehabilitation centre, or in a sanctuary, the picture is still actively glorifying the animal selfie.
The most effective strategy is to change our attitudes around exotic wildlife, stop posting pictures with them, remove photos you may already have posted, and encourage friends and family to do the same. In fact, many sites like Instagram now allow you to report photos of wildlife exploitation. Instagram works with wildlife groups such as World Wildlife Fund, TRAFFIC, and World Animal Protection to spread education about appropriate interactions with nature and encourages mindfulness when posting photos with animals.

While social media sites are often villainized in the scope of the illegal wildlife trade, they also hold a great power to spread education and awareness to a large audience. Commenting on posts, channels, and websites when you see something immoral can have a huge impact. As consumers of these apps and websites, we can hold people accountable for the content they choose to share and can open up a place for learning when we see animals being exploited.

The animals that fall victim to the illegal wildlife trade cannot speak for or defend themselves against harmful people and situations. It is our job to be their voice by reporting videos and photos that exploit animals and by educating people when opportunities present themselves. Slow lorises gained much of their popularity as pets through social media, but this power of technology also can be used to spread knowledge and change the perception of human-wildlife relationships.

Further Reading
Schneider, J. L. 2012. Sold into Extinction: The Global Trade in Endangered Species. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishers.
Davies, B. 2005. Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia. San Rafael, USA: Earth Aware Editions.
Brown, V. F. 2017. The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It. New York, USA: Oxford University Press.

“Pig abound all along the banks of the Jamna (as the Yamuna was colloquially addressed), being found in the jhau jungle where there are no crops, and in the latter when they are high enough to afford cover. Foxes and hares are plentiful on the eastern bank of the Jamna… Blackbuck are found almost everywhere. Chinkara abound in the range of hills which runs north-east of Delhi, being especially numerous at Bhunsi, Sinah, and the part of the-Ridge in this neighbourhood. Wolves are not plentiful, but they are to be usually found in the neighbourhood of the old cantonment… Jackals abound. Hares are found generally throughout the district. Peafowl are plentiful. Duck and snipe are plentiful in ordinary years but in dry years they are scarce. The Nilgai is to be constantly found… Leopards are found in the outlying villages. I have myself seen them at Tuglakabad…”

Few would believe that this text from the Delhi District Gazetteer of 1883-84 describes Delhi’s landscape. Within the last century, Delhi’s wildlife has been decimated to such an extent that Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary (ABWS) located in southern Delhi was termed as an ‘artificially created’, ‘man-made’
protected area by the Zoological Survey of India in 2003, while other organisations questioned its wildlife sanctuary status given the paucityof wildlife. Although there are no census numbers to cite due to lack of data, it is certainly true that the herds of Blackbucks and Chinkaras mentioned in the Gazetteer are long gone. Today, a few Blackbucks and Spotted Deer or Chital (as it is locally called) roam in the sanctuary, having been brought into ABWS in zoo–likeenclosures in the last few decades (although the latter species does not have a recorded presence in the Ridge).

So, how did we come to this? And what can be speculated about the ecological future of Delhi’s last remaining forests and wildlife? These questions are discussed in ‘Conservation in Urban Spaces People–Wildlife Interactions and Management of Delhi’s Forests,’ a chapter from the book Nature Conservation in the New Economy: People, Wildlife and the Law in India. The chapter interrogates the dynamics of forest management in Delhi and its socio-ecological impacts. At a time when rapid deforestation is necessitating action to protect and increase greenery, the chapter critically analyses afforestation in Delhi within its eco-climatic context and history of British colonisation.
 
According to municipal records from the time, the British planted approximately 3000 Neem (Azadirachta indica) and Babul (Acacia nilotica) trees between 1878 and 1879 alone. However, tree plantation in Delhi was started in earnest by them around 1883 in the northern Ridge. There were many motivations that propelled the colonialists to start afforestation; amongst others, they were tormented by the searing heat of the city and hoped that an extensive green cover would make their lives more bearable. The open scrub forests were also an eyesore, and given that people like Sir Frederick Treves described Delhi as “a desolate plain covered with the ruin and wreckage of many cities”, greening was seen as an aesthetic improvement of the bare surroundings. In order to expedite greening of the landscape, the British also introduced Prosopis juliflora or Vilayati Kikar, a sturdy tree native to Mexico, which has since become an invasive species. The Indian forest department has dutifully continued to pursue afforestation as an important national goal, with the country aiming a 33 percent forest cover. Although planting trees is certainly a noble act, the choice of species and restoration plan should be based on local environmental and climatic conditions, soil type and water availability. Most of Delhi’s protected areas encompass the Ridge, the tail-end of the Aravalli mountain range. Champion and Seth categorised Delhi Ridge’s floral composition as semi-arid, open scrub, with a primarily open landscape dotted by mostly thorny, secondary forests. However, instead of implementing an ecological restoration by introducing pioneer species of grasses and shrubs that would foster the growth of trees, the government has been steadfastly expanding tree plantations and identifying tree cover across Delhi. Their efforts are bearing fruit, and the Delhi forest/ tree cover has increased from 1.48 percent in 1993 to 20.22 percent in 2015. As fumes bellowing from cars and the machinery of industry have cumulatively contributed towards making Delhi’s air one of the world’s most noxious, arborification has gained more legitimacy as a natural solution to combat pollution.

Explaining Delhi’s Ridge management, the chapter argues that a multiplicity of governing bodies is problematic and requires urgent streamlining. From the Delhi Development Authority and Central Public Works Department to the forest department and even the Sports Authority of India, several governmental bodies have management control over portions of the Ridge. While some departments want to conserve the Ridge as a forest, others are interested in converting it into parks and recreational areas. These contradictions at the policy and planning stage are a key reason for the lack of a comprehensive and integrated Ridge management policy, and distinct (and often disparate) management of different protected areas of the Ridge.

Although ABWS is a relatively small protected area, it is part of a much larger, still-broadly contiguous block of Aravalli forests spread across Delhi, Gurgaon and Faridabad districts. Despite fragmentation and severe anthropogenic pressures, the undulating landscape continues to function as a wildlife corridor that extends approximately 200 kilometres from Delhi to Sariska in Rajasthan. Given the management of different pockets of the Ridge in isolation and absence of a comprehensive wildlife management policy by the Delhi and Haryana governments for the Aravalli stretch, ABWS may well end up being nothing more than a glorified zoo.
By closely analyzing the colonial history of Delhi’s environmental management, the chapter claims that Delhi’s post-independence forest governance has perpetuated the historical marginalisation of commons and pastoralism, and retained a disdain for arid ecosystems. This becomes especially evident in the process of ABWS’ notification. Although most of northern and central Ridge were declared as reserved forests under colonial rule, the creation of ABWS is relatively more recent. In 1989, the Delhi administration decided to notify some portions of Delhi’s forests as a wildlife sanctuary per Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and 1882.80 hectares of Gaon Sabha land was notified as Asola Wildlife Sanctuary. Subsequently, 866.5 hectares of contiguous Gaon Sabha land was also alienated and merged into the sanctuary in 1991 to create ABWS. The sudden alienation of the commons had a profound impact on both the Gujjars, an agro-pastoral community that historically has lived in these areas, and Hind Odh settlers in Sanjay Colony, who are landless migrants from Sindh, Pakistan. In recent years, there has been a concerted attempt to remove all ‘encroachments’ from the wildlife sanctuary, and the Forest Department has raised security concerns citing the ‘illegal’ presence of “Pakistani nationals” in Delhi and advocated for their eviction.

It would be erroneous to portray Gujjars as a completely forest dependent community, and the chapter does not indulge in romanticising the Gujjar community’s diverse way of life. With many of the younger generation employed in businesses and jobs, aspirations for a different life has taken many Gujjars away from an agro-pastoral lifestyle. However, not every household evolved away from natural resource dependence, and many residents in and around ABWS who accessed the village commons for natural resource collection were forced to modernise very quickly. Urbanisation was enforced in villages without providing any alternate means of employment, sources for fodder or economic support to help transition from pastoralism. The rural character ofsome villages was altered radically after the Delhi Development Authority acquired vast tracts of agricultural land for development. State induced loss of agricultural land later became a reason to justify exclusion of people from forests since they had lost their ‘rural’ character.

Despite almost two decades having passed since ABWS was notified, the government lacks a clear boundary or authoritative map. The original intention was to create the sanctuary as a deer or tiger safari, with the possible introduction of carnivores. In the last few years, leopards have been sighted in and around ABWS, probably having crossed over from the Ridge areas of neighbouring Faridabad and Gurgaon. In the last decade, conclusive evidence of the leopard’s continued presence in ABWS was obtained in 2013, when one of them was found impaled on the spiked high walls of farm houses that have cropped up on the Ridge. Despite these discouraging trends, the chapter offers hope that all is not lost. Much of the Ridge in southern Delhi and Haryana remains contiguous, and with the Supreme Court having halted mining in the area, wildlife has reportedly been recovering. Planning a scientific and consolidated management of the Aravalli to conserve the habitat would not only be beneficial for wildlife, but also protect water security and combat other ecological problems in the region.
 

 

For nearly a century, conservation across much of the world focused on creating people free enclaves, typically national parks and sanctuaries. In recent decades, there has been increasing recognition one cannot rely completely on these conventional protected areas to preserve diversity. Given current human population sizes and growth rates, it may not be feasible, or fair, to substantially increase the area under reservation or restoration, since many biodiversity rich areas coincide with where the world’s poorer communities live. This has led to the development of alternate conservation approaches, which include greater empowerment and participation of local communities. Thus, human-dominated areas, particularly matrices which include both natural areas and agricultural lands, are set to play an increasingly important role in long-term biodiversity conservation.

The agricultural matrix has, in particular, received a lot of attention in last couple of decades as an opportunity for the protection of biodiversity, since it covers 38 percent of land worldwide. In the Western Ghats, coffee plantations cover approximately 3600 km2; they have traditionally been almost entirely shade-grown. Throughout the tropics, such traditional agricultural practices which incorporate trees are found to be compatible with the conservation of native biodiversity. Coffee plantations in the Western Ghats region provide habitat for some species as well as increase the overall connectivity of natural habitats considerably. Given that they provide significant support for biodiversity, these shade coffee plantations provide excellent opportunities for the conservation of wildlife outside protected areas.

While national forest laws and policy were implemented after independence in 1947, whereby State-owned forests were managed by the Forest Department, indiscriminate felling of trees continued on private lands, resulting in the loss of timber and soil erosion in hill areas. To prevent this and promote conservation of trees in private areas, the Tree Preservation Order was issued in various states in 1952. This prohibited the felling, lopping or wilful destruction of native trees. Various states then enacted tree preservation legislations including Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala and Delhi.

The Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976 provides for the preservation of trees in the state by regulating the felling of trees and planting of adequate numbers of trees to ‘restore ecological balance’. There is a provision for the appointment of a ‘tree officer’ by the Forest Department and a ‘tree authority’ for each urban and rural area, whose duty is to preserve all trees within his/her jurisdiction. The tree officer is supposed to carry out a census of existing trees and specify the minimum numbers and kind of trees that each region and land type should have. In specific cases, however, the ‘tree authority’ can grant permissions for tree felling.

All this sounds good for native trees, which should have positive outcomes for the preservation of genetic diversity, local forest types and habitats for other species. However, over the years, this did not play out quite as expected. For example, there were other simpler ways for acquiring permits for timber harvest. One coffee planter said:
Silver oak is free. No permit required for its harvest. But we need a permit to transport it. Also, jungle wood harvest is a problem. It takes long time to get permits . For us it is difficult to deal with the Forest Department. So we just give a contract to timber agents. These agents are very efficient at getting permits. They have got a fixed ‘cut’ for each level, starting from the top till the guards. They have got things under control.

The Act provides for an annual tree census to be conducted in all private properties as a means to keep a check on violations of any of the provisions of the Act. However, the managers reported that the census of trees had never been conducted in the estates. One of them said:
If there is excess shade, we need to remove it. Timber from silver oak is sold in the market and jungle wood is used as fuel wood by our labourers. It is part of shade management. But we have no need to worry, as no officer will come to check in the estates.

A young planter, one of the few who was well-informed about the Act, pointed out that the KPTA provided for a decision on an application for timber harvest within a three-month period, but he had been waiting at least 18 months for permission to harvest an old rosewood tree. However, the most interesting response came from an elderly owner of a very large plantation:
For us there is a totally different procedure for timber harvest, one just needs to pay some bribe and in case of valuable trees like rosewood, give them their share of timber too.

There was very low awareness among the planters about direct implications of the Act on the management of coffee plantations. While all plantation owners interviewed knew about the existence of ‘some tree law’, very few understood its details. In the absence of the tree census, there was no way that the Forest Department could determine non-compliance of the law.

Most ironically, due to the constraints imposed by the law on felling native trees, private land-owners planted more non-native timber species. Thus, a law that was intended to protect native species actually had the opposite effect and has led to a decline in native species in human-dominated landscapes. Others have found a similar situation in Kerala, where the Tree Preservation Act actively discourages planters from growing native trees on their land.

There can be many gaps between policy and practice. Policy can be poorly framed or implemented. But in the case of tree preservation in these states, while there was also poor implementation, the perverse consequence (of leading to more non-native trees) has been a greater failure. If human-dominated landscapes, especially those with the potential to be biodiversity friendly (like coffee) are to contribute to conservation, policy needs to be framed in a way to incentivise landowners to promote native biodiversity on their properties.