Author: 3sc

Who does conservation science and why that matters: a personal perspective

 
Listening to plenary talks at a conservation science conference can be rather depressing. We hear about species going extinct in our lifetimes, and about the array of forces deployed against biodiversity. Indeed, I remember several years ago having these dispiriting feelings at the Asian Chapter of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) meeting in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, as I listened to several researchers who expressed justifiable frustration with the policies of the countries where they were working and the outlook for conservation there.

But then there was a presentation by Dr. Sanjay Gubbi, now at the Nature Conservation Foundation, which gave me a jolt, and a sense that some problems were addressable. This presentation was remarkable for its tone: it highlighted small but significant victories, gradual increases in the amount of land protected as tiger reserves in India. A second significant quality of the talk was it was by an Indian scientist working in India who had a good feeling for the political pulse of his country.  He described ways in which as a conservation scientist he was able to form sometimes unlikely alliances with other groups of people, including farmers and business people. I especially remember how he described convincing a particular politician by understanding his background: the politician came from a place of water shortage and Dr. Gubbi packaged his sales pitch to appeal to this personal knowledge of how valuable water can be.

Dr. Gubbi’s presentation stimulated me to think about the importance of who does conservation, as well as what particular policies are advocated. For if conservation is a political practice, and if conservationists must persuade people of its use, sometimes against those people’s short-term interests, then it is critical how this sales pitch is made. The most successful conservationists will be those who are able to communicate well with the people directly affected by conservation, those who understand the people’s language, culture, traditions and the intricacies of their political situation.

I have experienced some of these issues first hand as a foreign scientist working in Asia. Several times when conducting a conservation education program, I was asked if was trying to influence the protection status of (or more directly to “buy”!) the Sri Lankan national park I worked in, representing American interests. Although it didn’t make me question the use of our program, it did make me more skeptical of how successful a spokesperson I personally could be for conservation.  Ultimately any idea that a foreigner may advocate can be perceived as embodying a different set of values than those of the local people they work amongst, or worse, being an imposition of such a foreign value system.

Fortunately, I have worked with a group of Asian colleagues, including my wife Dr. Uromi Manage Goodale, who have active conservation and education programs, so I hope I have made contributions through my work with them. The example of my Sri Lankan advisor, Prof. Sarath Wimalabandara Kotagama, has been particularly instructive.  Prof. Kotagama helped build a grass-roots conservation movement that emphasized how natural resources were part of Sri Lanka’s heritage, and he has reached out and engaged Sri Lankans through educational materials about wildlife in Sinhala. Subsequent travels around Asia have confirmed for me the impression that the conservation ethos is particularly strong in Sri Lanka. This strength, I believe, derives particularly from Sri Lankans’ belief that conservation is the protection of their own history and identity.

As I look back over my own career, I must say that I have been rather “academic”, concentrating on ecological studies rather than actual conservation impact.  By “academic” I do not mean “dry” or uninteresting; I have been fortunate to work on aspects of animal behavior and ecology, such as avian vocal mimicry, or species interactions in mixed-species bird flocks, that are, at least I find, endlessly fascinating.  I hope that I have been able to stimulate the curiosity of people I have interacted with, and ultimately that such interest can drive a feeling of responsibility for nature.

Now as a professor currently working in China I try to encourage the careers of students I work with, who can then make a conservation impact themselves.  I need to guard against the laissez-faire temptation to not try conservation myself, for such a strategy should not be a replacement or alternative to practicing conservation. But I do believe that such an education pathway can promote conservation, particularly if it can develop Asian conservationists here in Asia.

This past year, my colleagues and I published an academic paper about who does conservation science, published in Biological Conservation and accessible on my ResearchGate site. As the world economy changes, the percentage of papers published by non-high income (NHI) countries has increased, and we wanted to see whether this pattern was also found in conservation. We focused on the international literature, not because it is necessarily important for conservation action (indeed local-language and locally-distributed texts can be more important in true impact), but because success in the international literature is increasingly essential for career promotion.  We were surprised to find that as a field, conservation science lags in the increase of NHI voices, ranking 10/10 of the randomly chosen fields we investigated.  Part of the reason for this trend is that from the beginning conservation science had an over-representation – compared to other fields – from low-income countries, since often it is those countries that are the most biodiverse, especially if situated in the tropics.  But this traditional value on the voices of low-income countries is now decreasing.

We offer two main solutions to this problem.  One is short-term and is focused on the journals and their policies which could encourage more publications from developing and tropical countries.  The more long-term solution is to see institutions of higher education in these countries as platforms for creating the next generation of conservationists.  This is not to say that students who go abroad to get their degrees can’t come back and work for their native country. Many do; however, many do not, leading to a ‘brain drain’ of sorts, seen in other fields. Some argue that in many fields a brain drain is not necessarily negative; but if conservation especially needs local voices as argued above, such a flow robs us potentially of the most powerful spokespeople. Further, not all graduates are academic themselves: programs in conservation science produce people who go into NGOs and government positions, bringing their conservation ethos with them.

Going back to that meeting of ATBC’s Asian chapter, what is most encouraging is the cohort of students from many Asian countries presenting talks and posters.  Yes, we may be losing forever some of our iconic Asian species, including rhinos, orangutans, the cat family both big and small.  We are bleeding, and these losses are indescribably painful.  But it is this group of young people who might hold the power to eventually slow the bleeding, and after seeing their progress, one sees the future brighter than before.
Eben Goodale Author
Megha Vishwanath Illustrator
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2017 Mar
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Things are not always what they seem

Cheats and Deceits: How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead,
by Martin Stevens
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-870789-9
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016

Wildlife communication can be elegant and alluring; consider the intoxicating scent of a budding flower, the music of the dawn chorus, or the graceful mating dances of many bird species. But these beautiful behaviours hide a dirty secret: Just like humans, other organisms can be devious, and sometimes they wish to mislead. They may try to obscure their presence altogether with camouflage; they may use mimicry to convince other individuals they are a different species or perhaps even an inanimate object; they may even tell outright lies.

In Cheats and Deceits, author and sensory ecologist Martin Stevens explores the baffling, astounding, and impressive array of techniques that wildlife use to further their own agendas. He sets the stage with the case of the alcon blue butterfly, whose caterpillars are adopted by ants and fed for up to two years before they pupate, leave the ants’ nest, and head off to start the cycle again. This remarkable process is made possible by the caterpillars’ ability to mimic the smells and sounds of the ants, thus deceiving the latter into becoming caretakers even though the caterpillars do not help them. The author writes:

Deception should benefit those practising it, but it is often costly to the animals being tricked, from lost time or resources such as food, through to a greatly increased risk of death. This book is about how deception works in nature and how it evolves…Ultimately, this book is about what deception can tell us about how species interact with one another, and the processes of evolutionand adaptation.

So begins a riveting journey through an extensive catalogue of deceptive behaviours that are seen in nature. The reader learns, for example, about predators that trick their prey into approaching dangerously close, plants that facilitate reproduction by pretending to be mates of pollinating insects, and vulnerable animals that use displays to seem threatening to would-be attackers. Indeed, as these examples suggest, the vast majority of deception falls into one of only three broad categories: obtaining food, avoiding being eaten, and reproduction. The magic of the book is how it reveals, and revels in, the diversity to be found within each of these types—the many variations on a theme that result when you factor in differences in habitat, mode of communication, relatedness of the deceiver and victim, and other constraints found in the environment.

Cheats and Deceits is one of those rare books that can be appreciated by both a scientific and a lay audience. This is not because Stevens oversimplifies his explanations and descriptions, but because he has such a clear and engaging style. One of the most appealing aspects of Stevens’ writing is how he takes care to define scientific terms and describe the methodologies used to observe, explore, and test hypotheses about the fascinating behaviours described here. The author acknowledges pioneering researchers by name and academic affiliation and cites liberally, thus making it easy for readers to track down more information on any of the studies discussed in the volume. Many of the book’s 69 figures include photographs of experimental setups and testing equipment; here, the scientific process is not something that is glossed over, but instead is placed front and center so readers can get a sense of the incredible work required to find scientific answers.

The book could easily have been a literary cabinet of curiosities—full of amazing and engaging oddities, but lacking real educational value. However, Stevens takes care to contextualise his case studies so that readers also learn more broadly about how and why animals communicate, what types of characteristics can provide information to other individuals, and how and why these intricate behaviours might have developed to begin with. He is particularly careful to explore the “economics” of the behavioural transactions he describes—the costs and benefits for both the deceivers and the deceived, and the intricate balance that allows such behaviours to persist over time. Thus, Cheats and Deceits is not just a useful introduction to one particular realm of animal communication research, but also an excellent and engrossing way to learn about natural selection and evolution in general.

One of the other powerful messages in the book is, as Stevens himself writes:

…that deception takes place in a way that is most salient to the animals being deceived, with regard to their sensory apparatus, and using our own perceptions to judge this can be misleading, either missing the sophistication of deception because we don’t perceive it properly, or even perhaps thinking the deception is not very good because it arises in areas in which our senses are superior to those of the animals being tricked.

By allowing readers to sense the world through the eyes/ears/noses/feelers of a wealth of other species, Stevens shows not only that we can be easily misled by the signals we do experience, but also that the world around us may contain many more signals than we are even capable of perceiving. It is a stunning realisation that reminds readers just how impressively adapted our fellow animals are—even if they are sometimes cheats and deceits.
Caitlin Kight Author
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2017 Mar
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Science, Not Silence

On Earth Day 2017, scientists and science lovers around the world united to demonstrate their appreciation of a concept that means different things to different people. For some, it is a job; for others, a hobby; many thank science for saving their life, and still others appreciate science for improving their standard of living.

Regardless of the exact nature of each supporter’s prior interactions with, and affection for, science, one feeling united all participants involved in the demonstrations: Science is currently under attack. Two science advocates share their views on how we got to this point, and what we need to do next.

 
Caitlin Kight Author
Stephanie Bryant Author
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2017 Mar
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The Greatest Weapon in the Fight to Save Science

When I first set out to become a scientist I had little interest in politics. As an undergraduate student studying biology, I naively assumed that science was a universally appreciated field. After all, despite artificial borders, we all drink the same water and breathe the same air. Cancer, heart disease, and strokes treat conservatives and progressives equally. But after many years of depending on US government funding for research in academia, I’ve learned that science and politics are inextricably linked. The budget of the National Institute of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, is currently slated to lose $5.8 billion (~18%) of its 2018 budget under the new U.S. administration (Reardon et al. 2017). The Paris Agreement, which unites over 190 nations in a common effort to mitigate the effects of climate change, is at the mercy of the environmental regulations enacted (or redacted) by each nation’s government (United Nations 2016). In learning that the boundaries of science are not limited by scientists, but by government and politics, I realized that I have only been doing half of my job as a scientist. It is not enough to simply do science. We must also advocate for science. As science students, professionals, and enthusiasts, we are the greatest weapons in the fight to save science.

Science is not just the work of people in white lab coats looking through microscopes. Chemistry, agriculture, drug development, engineering, data science, and any other field that builds knowledge based on systematic experimentation and the quantitative fact is a science. Historically, these fields have had a substantial impact on government policy. Research in environmental science informs decisions on issues such as pesticide use, city air pollution limits, and water treatment standards. Research in chemistry and biology impacts regulations on food safety and drug efficacy made by organizations such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the U.K. and the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. Without science, there is no evidence on which to base policy. Yet legislation is often still developed without regard for (or in spite of) evidence. Despite scientific consensus on the theory of evolution, many public schools in the U.S. allow teachers to teach creationism as an “alternative” to evolution. Likewise, many global powers continue to prioritize economic policy over efforts to curb climate change, despite overwhelming evidence that climate change is anthropogenic and will have negative global impacts for decades to come.

The crumbling relationship between science and politics galvanized scientists and science supporters in over 400 cities across the globe to unite in a non-partisan March for Science on April 22nd to highlight the importance of evidence-based policy. In a healthy relationship between science and politics, voters would be educated on scientific issues and would take these matters into consideration when electing individuals to represent their interests. Elected officials would also be scientifically literate and represent the interests of their constituents, and would thus advocate for evidence-based policies that are best for the people. Yet people often ignore scientific evidence when forming opinions about science policy and when electing opinions. Numerous political and social science studies have found that opinions on scientific issues are heavily influenced by existing beliefs, religion, and political party or ideology (Blank and Shaw 2015; Pew Research Center 2015; Mervis 2015). The resulting dissonance between public opinion and scientific evidence impacts policies on issues ranging from how government funds are allocated for scientific research to how science is taught in schools. While many of the factors contributing to this may be out of the direct control of scientists, we do have power over one of the most influential factors: science communication. The single greatest way to impact science policy is by imparting the importance of science to the public — by influencing policy through the people.

We can no longer leave science communication up to those in the mass media or politics. While science journalism is critical to the dissemination of science to the public, those with preexisting perceptions based on non-scientific factors are difficult to reach with this medium. To reach greater numbers more effectively, we must take upon ourselves the responsibility of protecting and promoting science. Rejection of science is most likely to occur on issues where scientific evidence seems directly opposed to personal or religious beliefs or where it involves self-sacrifice (Blank and Shaw 2015; Pew Research Center 2015; Mervis 2015).

To combat this, we must emphasize the ways in which science can be integrated with established beliefs and routines, and highlight the ways in which people personally benefit from science. If you are a scientist, you can do this by explaining your research and its impacts to as wide a range of non-scientists as possible. When you do so, be specific and focus on the impact of your work and how it fits into the ideology of your audience. Don’t skip the “boring” details, either. By glossing over grueling tasks such as applying for grants and engaging in the peer-reviewed publication process, we fail to convey how rigorous our studies must be to be funded or published and reduce the perceived value of our research. Another immensely valuable way to share scientific data is by publishing in open access journals or pre-publishing in free online archives, eliminating the need for expensive journal subscriptions to view current scientific research.

If you are a science student, explain your course material or research projects to family, friends, and co-workers; this has the added bonus of helping you to learn the material better. If you are a science teacher, enthusiast, illustrator, or citizen scientist, let people know! Use social media to share interesting laboratory experiments, illustrations, or blogposts with a wider audience. In the typical jargon-filled journal article format, science can be intimidating. Using social media platforms as outlets brings science to the people in a more familiar and inviting format. Sharing eye-catching photos of colorimetric reactions or fluorescence microscopy images can be a surprisingly effective way of starting a conversation about the importance of funding environmental or biomedical research. We may not be science journalists, but we are the people on the front lines of science. Learning about science informally through the experiences of people in the field can be much more personal and impactful than hearing about it from a journalist or news anchor.

In addition to talking about science, we must also act for science. While the March for Science sent a strong message to onlookers around the world, we must also actively share science within our own communities. Easy ways to do this include submitting op-eds to local newspapers, attending town hall meetings, or volunteering at local schools, libraries, and museums. Submit summaries of scientific articles to local publications. Give demonstrations or talks at community events. Whichever community platform you choose, it is important to tailor your message to your audience, as not everyone will be receptive to the same message. A rural farming community will likely be less interested in a talk on genome editing than in an explanation of how science enhances farming technologies or animal breeding practices. Yet everyone benefits from science in some way, so our message is for everyone.

However, we choose to advocate, it is imperative that we make meaningful connections between people and science. By communicating to broader audiences in more personal ways, we may begin to heal the dissonance between science and politics. Whether or not you participated in the March for Science, it is vital to unite with other scientists to defend its most powerful slogan: Science not Silence.

References:

Blank, JM and D Shaw. 2015. Does partisanship shape attitudes toward science and public policy? The case for ideology and religion. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 658: 18-35.

Funk, C and L Rainie. 2015. Americans, Politics and Science Issues. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/ americans-politicsand-science-issues/. Accessed on April 16,2017.

Mervis, J. 2015. Politics, science, and public attitudes: what we’re learning, and why it matters. Science. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/politicsscienceandpublic-attitudeswhatwe-relearningand-why-it-matters. Accessed on April 21, 2017.

Reardon, S, J Tolleson, A Witze and E Ross. 2017. US science agencies face deep cuts in Trump budget. Nature News 543. https://www.nature.com/news/usscienceagenciesface-deep-cutsintrumpbudget-1.21652. Accessed on April 21, 2017.

United Nations. 2016. Paris Agreement. United Nations Treaty Collection.
Caitlin Kight Author
Stephanie Bryant Author
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2017 Mar
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Science and Politics

Humans are not unique in living communally, working cooperatively, using tools, investigating the world around us, or even communicating.
Cumulatively, however, these characteristics have allowed us to achieve remarkable things that set us apart from all other species on Earth: We create tools of astonishing complexity, engineer new structures and re-engineer entire environments, develop medical techniques to extend and
improve lives, create breathtaking works of art, prepare exquisite culinary delights, and then use our unparalleled linguistic ability to discuss these advances, record them for posterity, learn from them, and work towards an even more successful future.

All of this is facilitated by science, “the state of knowing: knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding…a department of systematized knowledge…knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws” (Merriam-Webster).
For most of us, the word “science” probably brings to mind images of spaceships and flasks full of mysterious chemicals and Petri dishes housing microscopic life forms, but these are only some of the many wonderful physical embodiments of the concept. A fully inclusive visualization would require us to expand our minds’ eyes to encompass nearly all aspects of our collective human culture, from the foods we eat (our ancestors’ experiments determined which could be safely eaten, how their flavour could be improved through different types of preparation, which varieties could be domesticated, and how those domestic yields could be made greater and more quickly) all the way through to the art we appreciate in museums (thanks to our distant relatives who first discovered how to mix liquid with pigments to make paint, how to strengthen clay by exposing it to fire, how to extract metals from ores and then fashion them into useful and decorative implements, how to use mathematical rules to create aesthetically pleasing layouts, and so on). These are only a few examples of topics about which we are in a “state of knowing”, and about which we have learned through a process of experimentation and observation.

Image: Kayla A Gomez

When you think of it like this, science sounds not just fundamental, essential, fascinating, and enjoyable, but also laudable; it sounds like an achievement that we should celebrate and protect and promote. It certainly doesn’t sound as though it should be controversial—though particular disciplines and applications might be uncommonly thought-provoking— and you wouldn’t think that “science”, “scientist”, or “scientific” could ever be used in a negative way.

And yet, the recent March For Science (MFS) campaign saw citizens around the world uniting to voice their support for a beleaguered ideal that has— especially in recent months— been attacked, misrepresented, misunderstood (sometimes deliberately), and suspiciously questioned. Over 800,000 scientists and science-lovers have joined a March For Science Facebook group where they can share pro-science anecdotes and coordinate pro-science activities. The MFS movement is not the first or only such effort, but it feels particularly poignant and meaningful. It seems to capture the zeitgeist very effectively: having despaired over the tone and style of science coverage in the press, watched stagnation or even backward progress around prominent and hugely impactful issues such as climate change and vaccinations, seen science and education-related budgets repeatedly slashed, and endured a growing vocal opposition to intellectualism in general, science supporters are now ready to take matters into their own hands and push back.

Image: Evan Kuhl


The prominence of the March for Science activities has encouraged and shined a spotlight on wider discussions around the role of science in society, and, in particular, around the intersection of science and politics—the latter of which can be defined as “the art or science of government or guiding/influencing governmental policy…the total complex of relations between people living in society” (Merriam-Webster).


Although scientific research should be performed systematically, objectively, and without bias, the people, the process, and the outcomes can all become politicized—and this is by no means exclusive to contemporary societies. Galileo, for example, was punished in the 17th century for advocating Copernicanism because this belief was seen to undermine the power of the Catholic church by challenging the veracity of the Bible; officials feared this theory because if one portion of the Scripture was proven to be false, others might be equally tenuous, and suddenly the Church might find itself lacking in authority. That famous example is a negative form of politicization, but others are more positive. In the early 1960s, US president John F Kennedy delivered two notable speeches in which he publicly declared a belief that Americans could and should reach the Moon by the end of the decade. The source of the goal—political and technological competition with Russia—may not be a source of scientific pride, but the resulting innovations and achievements certainly were, and still are; Kennedy linked intellectual accomplishment with Americans’ sense of identity, in the process promoting inspirational goals and respect for both research and ideas.

Scientists are, of course, only human—with opinions and preconceptions and motives and desires—but they are humans who, by and large, typically strive to be aware of these characteristics (within the context of their work, at least) and compensate for them so as to maximise the chance of obtaining unequivocal insights about the universe; we’d all rather be remembered as a Ptolemy than a Copernicus, after all, so it does pay to be rigorous.

Image: Cornell Alliance for Science

That said, careers, fortunes, and clout can all be influenced by the outcomes of scientific research, and so there will always be examples of impropriety— faked datasets, for example, or falsehoods and misdirection associated with conducting or interpreting studies (e.g., the case of Trofim Lysenko, discussed in Loren Graham’s recent book Lysenko’s Ghost). Scandals and public disagreements are damaging not just to those involved directly, but to all scientists and even science in general, since the public quickly loses faith in truth-seekers who seemingly can’t be trusted to tell the truth themselves. When this is combined with scientists’ innate desire to question and debate each new result, it creates an easy target for anyone wishing to paint science as unreliable and deceitful.

Those of us who know and love science—who engage in it, seek out opportunities to learn about it, teach it, look for ways to apply it to our daily lives in practical ways, interact with professional researchers, and advocate it to others—understand that its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: Science can both reveal and obscure in one fell swoop. The old aphorism is true: The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. As physicist and science communicator Professor Brian Cox said in a recent interview, “The value of science is in embracing doubt…
is not a collection of absolute truths. Scientists are delighted when we are wrong because it means we have learnt something” (Strom 2017).
Unfortunately, there are many people who take advantage of this pursuit of uncertainty and negated hypotheses—people who wilfully misconstrue the often repetitive and cyclical nature of the scientific process as being indicative of disorganization, confusion, and an inability to make progress.

These are the sorts of people who deny that climate change is occurring and is caused by anthropogenic activity; these are the sorts of people who try to prevent science teachers from discussing evolution in the classroom. When these are also the people holding elected positions in which they make decisions about national priorities, policies, and research funding schemes, personal ignorance becomes public misfortune.

Image: Raeann Shimak

Many of the scientists whose studies helped usher in the creation of the atomic bomb— Oppenheimer, Einstein, and Meitner prominent among them—were painfully aware of the potential consequences of their work, and stridently argued for world leaders to act with diplomacy and restraint. Recently, Japanese scientists have boycotted a military funding scheme in a similar show of reluctance to have their research weaponized or otherwise used to the detriment of whatever fellow humans might be deemed “enemies of the state” at some point in the future (Cyranoski 2017). These are extreme examples of how science can be politicized— and of how scientists can recognize that process—but recent events have shown, in particularly stark detail, that science is always politicized in some way or another (Naro and Francis 2017). Research is conducted by people who have grown up in particular cultures with particular ways of seeing and doing things; it is funded by patrons and institutions and governments with particular agendas; it is carried out within organizations and societies and countries with specific goals; it depends upon the ability of expertise, results, and progress to flow unimpeded across borders; it thrives on collaboration and openness rather than secrecy.

Although many of us may once have believed that science is apolitical—“having no interest or involvement in political affairs; having no political significance” (Merriam-Webster)—the past few months have been a reminder that the impact of politics on science can be immense; now we have the opportunity to show that the reverse can be true as well.
The popularity of the March For Science message shows that scientists are both frightened and galvanized by the current global political landscape. Although it is empowering to gather en masse with like-minded individuals and physically demonstrate our support for a scientific way of life, we will need to keep working long after April 22nd has come and gone. We must continue to speak out against misconceptions, advocate and advertise science.

We must work with the press to achieve more informative, less sensationalistic coverage of scientific news. We must contact politicians to advocate pro-science activities and attitudes. If government officials fail to represent our interests, we must vote them out at the next election. If we worry about finding candidates who have sufficient expertise, we must consider stepping forward ourselves. None of this will be easy, but no one person has to do it all. As the MFS Facebook group shows, the pro-science community is both vast and varied. Each of us can play to our individual strengths and, together, work towards a more fruitful synergy of science and politics; whatever personal debates we may have with each other in private, we need to be supportive and unified in public. We must be passionate, inspiring, clear, and persuasive. Above all, we must be persistent; as Galileo found many hundreds of years ago, the way to combat small-mindedness is with irrepressible science—not silence.

References:

Cyranoski, D. 2017. Japanese scientists call for boycott of military research. Nature. https://www.nature.com/news/japanesescientistscall- for-boycott-of-militaryresearch- 1.21779. Accessed on April 21, 2017.

Science. 2017. Merriam-Webster. com. https://www.merriamwebster.com/. Accessed on April 21,2017.

Naro, M and M Francis. 2017. Science is political. The Nib. https:// thenib.com/science-is-political. Accessed April 21, 2017.

Strom, M. 2017. Professor Brian Cox on elections: ‘Don’t vote for politicians who say they have all the answers’. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/professor-brian-cox-onelectionsdont-vote-for-politicians-whosay- they-have-all-theanswers- 20170403-gvc6hu.html Accessed April 21, 2017.
Caitlin Kight Author
Stephanie Bryant Author
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2017 Mar
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Editor's Note 9.2

In keeping with tradition, our second issue of the year is on marine conservation. This time, we focus on marine protected areas (MPAs) which have become an increasingly prominent instrument of marine conservation around the world. In fact,
in 2005, a body of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity set a global target that 10% of the world’s coastal and marine areas were to be formally part of protected areas by 2012. Of course, by 2010, only about 1 % of these habitats were protected and the deadline was extended to 2020. One of the strategies to meet these targets has been the declaration of very large marine protected areas, over 100,000 km2 in size. Noella Gray and her co-authors examine the human dimensions of these MPAs and suggest that it is necessary to understand the governance and politics of these parks in order for them to be successful. Like terrestrial protected areas, many of these MPAs are exclusionary and have come under a great deal of criticism for their impacts on human livelihoods. Aarthi
Sridhar examines the history of the establishment of marine parks in India, with examples from Odisha and the Gulf of Mannar in Tamil Nadu. Michelle Voyer provides a case study from the Batemans Marine Park in Australia, highlighting the
differences in perspective of the different stakeholders involved. In our Perspective section, Arian Wallach gives us an outsider’s view of wildlife tolerance in India. And finally, Caitlin Kight reviews a book series on sharks by Zachary Webb Nicholls (aka Dr Jaws), a ‘hybridist author’ who combines art, science and fiction to tell his stories.
Issue Editor: Kartik Shanker 

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Editor's Note 5.4

‘What is current about Current Conservation?’, some of you have asked. In these pages we typically present current research or stories that might lead our readers to a better understanding of conservation issues, whether directly or indirectly. This issue carries a number of summaries of scientific papers that highlight the myriad facets of science with implications for conservation. Species that are introduced or that escape into habitats foreign to them can do much damage – like depressing the numbers of prey species (pythons in the Everglades) or affecting other predators (green crabs and dunlins). What determines whether such species succeed or dies out? Scientists suggest that it has to do with how many times the species is introduced, but additionally, it depends on specific life-history traits as well.
Other research discusses how climate change and warming waters can affect swiming behaviours. Can protecting habitats ensure the success of species—in this issue we explore two marine species—Hector’s dolphins and manta rays. Finally,
our columnist explores what causes the spread of conservation ideologies in society today. Dan Brockington convincingly argues that the environmental movement requires media darlings, and that articulate, confident people take the cause further.
Issue Editor: R.Nandhini

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Editor's Note 5.3

Most conservation effort focuses on animals and their habitats, and often ignores the voices of people living in these landscapes. Almost all the essays in this issue revolve around the inhabitants of lands of conservation concern—their problems, and solutions they want or practice to deal with pressures like climate change and conflict. Before solutions can be implemented one needs to understand their practices and use of resources, argues Anirban Datta-Roy, in a detailed examination of hunting practices of the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh. Tenzing Ingty tells us that communities in wild landscapes, like the Dokpa and Lachenpa of Sikkim who use the traditional ecological knowledge gathered over generations to cope with climate change, can often assess change and threats better than scientists.
Most of the articles in this issue can be categorised into either the Eastern Himalayas or the Western Ghats, two biodiversity hotspots in India that have been in the news for a variety of reasons, says special issue editor Siddhartha Krishnan. In his essay he weaves the studies showcased into a narrative on conservation issues in these two spatial units. He goes beyond this to touch on the philosophies of the nations involved—Norway and India—both with socialist bents, and a desire to
balance environment and development.
Editor’s Note: R.Nandhini

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Editor's Note 5.2

The dog is a gentleman, said Mark Twain, a sentiment many people would endorse. Dogs have been a part of human cultures for over 15,000 years as protectors and companions. In many parts of the world, the domestic dog is now feral, and as an invasive species in these habitats, causes a cascade of negative effects. In this issue, three pieces examine how the dog is an introduced predator that harasses and affects local wildlife. Janaki Lenin introduces us to killer dogs-that kill for food or play, but also because they are rabid. Kalyan Varma’s photographs of dogs chasing and being chased by wildlife in Kutch, Gujarat, supplement these narratives. But are non-native species always detrimental to local ecosystems? Ema Fatima thinks not, and in her summary of a research paper, she outlines the many positive effects that foreign species have on the ecosystems around them.
In two other pieces, we feature anthropogenic noise, an intrinsic element of contemporary life. While we have long known that noise affects humans, Caitlin Kight and Madhusudan Katti tell us how noise impacts birds. Our noisy lives cause
all kinds of changes in animals that live around us, impacting behaviour, physiology, longevity and even survival. To know more about the human footprint and how we have affected the ecology of the world around us, read TR Shankar Raman’s
revealing summary of a book on environmental history.
erratum | In ‘Discovering wildlife in Cambodia’ in the print issue of 5.1, photograph credits go to The Society for Environmental Exploration, not Elise Belle. Elise Belle was Research and Development Manager at the Society for
Environmental Exploration at the time of publication. research@frontier.ac.uk
Issue Editor: R. Nandhini

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Editor's Note 5.1

Species on the brink of extinction are listed in Acts and Schedules, and directed conservation efforts are directed to protect their populations. What should happen when, as a result of these efforts, their numbers rise and the species recover? Should they now be categorised as ‘Not so Endangered’? Caitlin Kight examines the case of the iconic Bald Eagle, listed and subsequently delisted in the USA. Janaki Lenin and Sandesh Kadur take us through a powerful visual tour of hunting practices in Northeast India, and in this photofeature they ask if such practices can be banned or if such a ban is justified.
In this issue, we introduce ‘Then and Now’, a new section that presents viewpoints from the present and compares this to the past. A group of avid birders visit Vembanad, one of India’s largest wetlands, 70 years after Salim Ali documented its avifauna, and compare the present to the past. The change in the landscape and the impact on fauna reflect political and social changes and Cody Paterson from the present and compares this to the past. A group of avid birders visit Vembanad, one of India’s largest wetlands, 70 years after Salim Ali documented its the top-down approach to management in Vembanad that has altered the entire ecology of the wetland. Over the next few issues, we will follow these enthusiasts as they revisit Salim Ali’s explorations in Kerala, walking his trails, and on the same dates of the year.
Issue Editor: R.Nandhini

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Editor's Note 6.4

Students are great. If they were not, this special issue would not exist. The idea was born after the Network Analysis workshop at the 3rd Student Conference on Conservation Science in Bangalore, 2012. It was clear that while both
students and silverback scientists like network analysis and its applications, more needed to be done to familiarise decision-makers and stakeholders with the network perspective and what it offers. Networks are an entertaining way to model life, both nature and society: quantitative enough for the mathematical- minded, complex enough for the physical-minded, realistic enough for the biological-minded, visual enough for the artistic-minded and simple enough for the non-necessarily-scientist-minded (i.e. for ordinary people). Networks help to link various kinds of data and connect different disciplines. The dream is that networks will help also to link scientists to society. This special issue of Current Conservation can help. If many kinds of people read it, we will be satisfied that we achieved what we set out to do. Enjoy the contribution of some great experts in the field and do not forget the art in the background.
Issue Editor:Ferenc Jordan and Hari Sridhar

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Editors Note 6.3

At first glance, an issue on pre-independence mammalogists seems neither current nor about conservation. But it is the work and passion of these early naturalists that provides the foundation for our research in ecology and inspires us towards our conservation goals.
This issue originated with a series of essays written by the fourth batch (2010-2012) of students of the Post-graduate Programme in Wildlife Biology and Conservation, WCS-India and National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. Bhanu Sridharan, one of the students of that batch, played a significant role in both editing and coordinating the collection. John Mathew, who recently completed his Ph.D. (a second one) at Harvard University on the history of science, specifically late eighteenth to early twentieth century naturalists in India, wrote an introduction to the collection and edited the essays. Ajith Kumar, the coordinator of the programme since its inception in 2004, must be credited with the idea of the essays and of turning them into publishable articles. The take home message of this collection is that student research and assignments
often have value beyond the courses for which they are produced. With a little effort and editing, they can be publishable articles that provide important knowledge about otherwise little known topics. In fact, our section ‘Research in Translation’ is
designed not only to communicate about recent findings in conservation science, but also to serve as a platform for young researchers to learn to write for the public.
Editor’s Note: Kartik Shanker 

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Editor's Note 6.1

The idea of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is intuitively appealing. After all, everybody benefits from the ‘services’ that ecosystems provide such as clean air and water. Grouped as provisioning (food and water), regulating (climate and disease control), supporting (nutrient cycles and pollination) and cultural (aesthetic, spiritual or recreational) services, these collectively provide irreplaceable benefits for humankind. The idea then is that we should be willing to pay for these services, since not everyone shares the burden of maintaining these ecosystems in a state where they can provide these services.
In this issue, we examine this claim that PES is the panacea to our environmental problems while ensuring social justice. Lele examines whether PES delivers on the win-win outcomes it promises by deconstructing how Reducing Emissions from Deforestration and forest Degradation (REDD+) works. Jha contends that the loftier goals of Green India Mission are corrupted by its dependence on existing forest governance mechanisms that are not truly participatory. Menon and Kohli argue that the monetisation of forests has led to a commodification where their multiple meanings in ecology and culture are
lost. And Buscher’s analysis of PES in action in the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Park suggests that it is best viewed as a form of neo-liberal conservation. In summary, it seems that PES should be treated with care, and might
not be the solution to environmental problems that many make it out to be.
Editor’s Note:Kartik Shanker

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Editor's Note 7.2

Eclipsed by the terrestrial sphere in more ways than one, marine spaces remain poorly understood despite the huge pressures they face. In this issue, we feature two very different, but not mutually exclusive, approaches to conservation
in the marine realm. We bring together a collection of articles that explore contemporary scientific and conservation concerns. Demian Willette elaborates the role of science in conservation, specifically molecular tools such as DNA analysis. In their project in the Philippines, DNA sequences are used to delineate stocks and identify new species of sardines. Drawing on research conducted on 42 coastal communities spread across the Indo Pacific,Joshua Cinner opines that although there may not be a silver bullet solution for the world’s fishery problems, given the right set of conditions, local communities can indeed manage their resources in a sustainable manner. We also highlight Barbara Block’s research on marine predators. In conversation with Janaki Lenin, Block unravels the mysteries surrounding the movements of sharks and tuna, and the projects that enable a better understanding of their conservation. Through a series of a breathtaking images, Tasneem Khan and Umeed Mistry explore the problems and prospects for sharks and the complexity
surrounding these iconic predators. And finally, Rohan Arthur tells us the story of the fish that may have saved reefs in the Lakshadweep Islands.
Issue Editor: Kartik Shanker

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Editor's Note 7.1

In most instances relating to conservation, traditional, local and indigenous forms of knowledge and practice are ignored. In others, they play second fiddle to ‘scientific’ knowledge and practice, and are at best treated with romanticism or charitable condescension. In this issue of Current Conservation, we explore these themes further.
Our contributors offer a range of opinions and perspectives, some restrained, others not so. Charles Kay pulls no punches when he equates conservation with racism. In a thought-provoking article, he reminds us of the particularly effective record of colonial conservation when it comes to excluding and exterminating the native and in creating ‘wilderness’ untouched by man. Michael Adams discusses the significant potential for integrating different forms of knowledge into contemporary conservation strategies relating to climate change in Australia. Reviewing literature that compares traditional and scientific forms of knowledge, Meera Anna Oommen asks if dichotomising the two is justifiable? Christine Eriksen and Don Hankins explore the gendered dimensions of knowledge about fire in Native American and Aboriginal Australian communities and the possibilities of a dynamic transitioning into current day conservation planning. Elsa Reimerson traces the creation of the Laponia World Heritage Site in Scandinavia, one of the few in the world which offers the promise of indigenous management. We also carry a photo-essay by Manish Chandi and a review of M Kat Anderson’s ‘Tending the Wild’ by Caitlin Kight. Both address hotspots of traditional knowledge and management: the Nicobar Islands and California.
Issue Editors: Meera Anna Oommen and Michael Adams

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Editor's Note 9.4

Climate change has been one of the most polarizing issues in contemporary debates about environment and conservation. Hence, it came as a pleasant surprise that nearly 200 countries were able to come to a reasonable agreement about the way forward at the Paris conference in end 2015. Matt Creasey provides a broad overview of the ecological impacts of climate change and the role that the recent talks may have in mitigating them. In order to monitor ecosystem responses to climate change, India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change launched its Long Term Ecological Observatories programme, intended to monitor socio-ecological systems, at the Paris conference.
However, climate change is far from being the only, or even most immediate, stressor for the environment. Karthik Teegalapalli and Deborah Lawrence call attention to the spread of oil palm plantations in Northeast India, and Eduardo Gallo-Cajiao points the devastating role of development on coastal intertidal ecosystems, which affects many species of shorebirds amongst other animals. Needless to say, politics plays a significant role in all these policies and consequent transformation of landscapes. Mathew Mabele questions the philosophy and practice of militarization in conservation. Staying with the intertidal theme, Hari Sridhar talks to Sonia Kefi about ecological networks, and how they can improve our understanding of non-trophic and trophic relationships in complex ecosystems . Finally, Naresh Kumar reviews Eliza Kent’s ‘Sacred Groves and Local Gods’ which examines the link between ecological values and religious beliefs
in communities in southern India.
Editor’s Note: Kartik Shanker

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Editor's Note 9.3

For the longest time, extinction only evoked images of mammoths, dinosaurs, trilobites even. Animals that disappeared millions of years ago. In the twentieth century though, it became abundantly clear that another wave of extinction was
upon the planet. The impact of humans on the natural world and the consequent disappearance of species is known as the sixth mass extinction. Some claim that a species goes extinct every 20 minutes, while others estimate that 1 in 6 species are
threatened by climate change. Whether some of these claims are overly dramatic or scarily close to the truth we do not know with certainty, but what is clear is the idea of extinction is central to the arenas of conservation and environmentalism.
A species that has become extinct will never be seen again on Earth.
Well, maybe not. A group of scientists and campaigners around the world have been working on the idea of ‘de-extinction’. Alba Charles writes about the technical and philosophical aspects of bringing back extinct species. On the flip side, Chris Bowden describes the efforts to prevent species – Asian V ultures – from going extinct. Hari Sridhar interviews Jim Nichols, doyen of quantitative ecology about using rigorous science for decision making in conservation. Matt Creasey takes a journey with the rufous Hummingbird, a remarkable 8000 mile round trip for a 3 gram bird. And finally, focusing on another species that has been threatened with extinction,Caitlin Kight reviews a book on the future of cheetahs by Laurie Marker.
Issue Editor: Kartik Shanker 

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Editor's Note 9.1

This issue of Current Conservation brings together a variety of pieces. While conservation focusses on its charismatic mega-fauna, usually vertebrates, the astonishing diversity of many small fauna is often missed. Matt Creasey aims the spotlights at the world of marine bacteria, nematodes and insects such as beetles and ants, showing that there is much wonder in little things. Turning to charisma though, Caitlin Kight finds shades of pink the world of flamingos, with some doing
quite well while others are of serious conservation concern. And Anna Busse looks at an animal that has been both reviled and worshipped over the centuries—wolves—and examines the ecological role that such apex predators play. Dave Hodgson reports on a student tour of Kenya, cutting across a range of land use types and conservation approaches. In a new section, Anisha Jayadevan writes about a field trip along the west coast of India in search of elusive cone snails.
Current Conservation conducted a science journalism contest during the Student Conference on Conservation Science, Bangalore, 2014 where participants were asked to send 250-300 words summary of two papers- one on celebrity advocacy
by Daniel Brockington and one on small drones for forest monitoring by Lian Pin Koh, both plenary speakers at the conference. The 25 entries we received were evaluated by a panel of judges and the winners were Anjali Vaidya and Karthik
Teegalapalli whose articles have been included in this issue of CC.
Editor’s Note: Kartik Shanker

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Duleep Matthai: 1924-2017

Duleep Matthai: Environmentalist; born in Chennai on October 18th, 1924 and died in Vallabh Vidyanagar, Anand District, Gujarat on March 5th 2017 aged 92.

Duleep Matthai was a highly influential figure in India’s nascent environmental movement in the 1970s that first flagged the long-term environmental risks arising from loss of forest cover that comes with unfettered industrial and agricultural development. The current water scarcity in many parts of the country can be attributed to both loss of forest cover and excessive water extraction with ever deeper bore wells. Securing the country’s water-catchment areas – the forests – was a key campaign for Matthai. His warnings and those of other environmentalists continue to fall on deaf ears because of widespread ignorance and indifference to the importance of ecological security.

Through his love of nature and wildlife developed from his early childhood growing up in the forested family estate in Kerala, Matthai understood long before it became widely accepted knowledge the ecological role of forests. He understood that the loss of large expanses of forests through human activity especially in the tropical regions and uplands of India poses a serious threat to human welfare and even survival.

Today there is undisputed scientific evidence that forests help to maintain air, water, and soil quality, influence climatic conditions, regulate run`-off and groundwater and reduce downstream sedimentation and flooding. They sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reduce the greenhouse effect and importantly protect the watersheds and river systems. Chronically drought-affected areas are invariably those that have undergone severe deforestation.

Matthai was a founding trustee of the World Wildlife Fund in India and always played an active role in promoting the organization within the country. He was largely instrumental in getting land allotted for setting up the WWF head office in New Delhi. His concerns about environmental degradation found resonance with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who discussed environmental issues with him from time to time and also invited him to join as a member of important advisory bodies set up by the Government, such as the National Committee of Environment Planning and Coordination and the Indian Board of Wildlife chaired by the Prime Minister. Matthai was consulted also when the Department of Environment was established in 1980, especially in the matter of naming it properly.

In 1980s, Matthai was appointed to the governing bodies of the newly established Indian Institute of Forest Management at Bhopal and the Wildlife Institute of India at Dehradun. He was also a member of the Steering Committee of the prestigious Project Tiger, which was also chaired by the Prime Minister whose purpose was to monitor the progress of what has to date been India’s largest and most successful Wildlife Conservation Project.

Later, as Vice Chairman of the National Wastelands Development Board set up by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Matthai toured the country extensively often on foot to understand the challenges of restoring biodiversity including the native species of flora to degraded barren tracts laid waste by exploitative human activities. He then suggested possible solutions, which included aerial seeding wherever feasible, given the political will to make available necessary resources and overcome vested interests.

Professor M. S. Swaminathan, the eminent scientist and father of India’s “Green Revolution” regards Duleep Matthai as the father of the ecological security movement in India and his commitment to the conservation of nature and the development of WWF India as “truly monumental”.

Born into an eminent Kerala family, Duleep was the second of the three children of Dr. John Matthai, who served successively as Railways and Finance ministers in Independent India’s first cabinet, and Mrs. Achamma Matthai who as Chairperson of the Central Social Welfare Board of the Govt of India played an important role in helping to resettle refugees from West Punjab in India after Independence and Partition.

Matthai’s first job was in 1944 as a 20-year-old management trainee in the tea industry in Assam with Jardine Henderson. In 1960 he moved to Bombay initially as JRD Tata’s Executive Assistant before taking on senior roles in other Tata companies.

Despite his busy corporate life, Matthai found time with Dr. Salim Ali the renowned ornithologist to extend the conservation work of the Bombay Natural History Society. The two nature lovers became lifelong friends with their shared passionate interest and deep knowledge of India’s large variety of birds.

In his mid-50s Duleep Matthai resigned from all his corporate activities to focus his energies on nature conservation and environmental protection and in doing so developed friendships with many similar-minded people across India’s social strata who mourn his loss.

Matthai helped set up in 2001 and became a founding trustee of the Foundation for Ecological Security an NGO that is actively involved in the massive and critical task of ecological restoration in the country, the “wastelands” in particular, and in 2007 he set up on his own initiative and became a founding trustee of the Duleep Matthai Nature Conservation Trust to which he donated the major part of his personal assets.

He passed away, at the age of 92, in Vallabh Vidyanagar, Anand District, Gujarat. Personable, driven and determined he helped in more ways than one to bring wildlife conservation to center-stage at a time when most Indians were competing with themselves to outdo the British destruction of natural India. His primary focus then was a concept that was understood by the ancients in India but forgotten in the melee of development post-1947… that destroying forests in the name of development would end up exhausting the water supplies of the subcontinent and visit all manner of miseries on our long-suffering people. He used to say then what many young persons now understand: “Nature does not need us. We need Nature.”

He is survived by his only son Arjun​.

A version of this article first appeared in the April 2017 issue of Sanctuary Asia <https://www.sanctuaryasia.com/people/in-remembrance/10610-duleep-matthai.html>
Kartik Shanker Author
Smitha Shivaswamy Illustrator
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11.1

2017 Mar
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Ken-Betwa link creating, not solving, water woes


Around 150 years ago a British engineer working in South India, Arthur Cotton, came up with revolutionary ideas to move and use water. The aim was “to arrest the unprofitable progress of its (the Godavari) waters to the sea”*. He sought to link rivers both for irrigation and as a means of navigation and movement of goods. The 19th century made strides in the engineering field and as so often happens with new technologies and ideas, they are seen as a cure-all for problems of life. In this context, the idea of solving water shortages and floods through the movement of river waters was born.

The idea has floated around catching the imagination of some of India’s water resource planners for some time. Both Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Abdul Kalam were impressed by it and the idea has been pushed as a BJP ‘dream’. However, some erstwhile Environment Ministers, like Jairam Ramesh, has examined the idea and pronounced it “disastrous”. Even government agencies such as the National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development Plan (NCIWRDP), after examining it carefully, considered it “unnecessary” and opined that the river basins could get all necessary resources from within their own area. River link schemes suggested in the 1970s were abandoned as technically or economically unfeasible.

Though we may still not fully understand our natural world, the 21st century has a far more developed knowledge of ecosystems and their crucial services than did the 19th, so while “unused” water may not provide direct financial gain, only the ecologically ignorant can regard a river’s natural flow as “unprofitable progress”.

It is extraordinary therefore that the Government still seeks to pursue an archaic engineering path for rivers. The river-linking scheme has had a momentum of its own; but, unusually for such a complex and far-reaching strategy, its biggest push came from the courts. While recording their limitation to make policy decisions and take expert views, the Supreme Court judges, in a 2012 judgment, nevertheless directed the government to constitute a “Special Committee for the inter-linking of Rivers”. This direction came in response to Public Interest Litigations (PILs) filed in the 1990s (No. 75 of 1998 and No. 15 of 1999) calling for the rivers to be nationalised and linked. These reached the Supreme Court in 2002 as Writ Petitions 668 and 512. The National Water Development Authority (NWDA), set up in 1982 to look at optimum utilisation of the river systems had completed the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the Ken- Betwa link project in 2010. The Court ordered the new committee to evaluate this first.

The Court’s benign attitude to river-linking seemingly arose from the simplistically appealing view of it being a flood and drought mitigation strategy. But river ecology is more complex and farmers and scientists alike have long known that floods also have their positive aspects. Annual floods help remove agricultural toxins and bring crucial nutrients to the farmland while also recharging groundwater. Besides some of the worst flooding is actually caused by dams.

What is the Ken-Betwa controversy?

The Ken-Betwa project does not fit the flood-drought pattern. The Ken river flows through some of the most drought-prone areas of the country, mostly in Madhya Pradesh. In spite of this, the NWDA argues that it has “surplus water”. The Betwa is deemed “deficient” and hence the project seeks to take water from the Ken basin to the Betwa’s. In fact, both rivers rise in the Vindhya region and when one endures a drought year of low rainfall, the other does too. These are both areas with a long dry season so both rivers received most of their rainfall in the monsoon months – matching each other for drought and flood.

Although today proponents most loudly claim that this will bring water to the drought-prone farmers of the Bundelkhand region, the DPR of the project in fact states that “the main objective… is to make available water to water deficit areas of upper Betwa basin…” It is a project of water substitution. The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) confirms that it is primarily for “the water-scarce Raisen and Vidisha districts”. Thus, in conception, it mainly looks to benefit areas outside Bundhelkhand, actually less “water-scarce” than its area of origin!

There are many ecological arguments against river-linking but it is also fraught with political and social landmines. Such projects bring to the table international disputes, interstate water wars, and even intra-basin – district level – conflicts to the table. Already those in the Panna district through which the Ken largely flows are wondering why ‘their’ water should be taken elsewhere rather than used to improve their own meagre livelihoods. Only 24% of the sown agricultural area of Panna is irrigated. Even Chattarpur and Tikamgarh districts of Bundhelkhand that the project has claimed will benefit, already have 65% and 78% irrigation (Minor Irrigation Census 2001).

It is hard to find a positive in this planned link or understand why the present government is pushing for it so strongly. Even the present Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Independent Charge) A M Dave does not seem wholly convinced: he has termed it “an experiment”. He believes the Ken-Betwa link should go ahead and an assessment of its impact on the environment be made after 5 to 10 years to see if others should go ahead. This is a strange view to hold when such projects require an Environment Impact Assessment exactly to assess this before the damage is done before a unique river system is irrevocably ruined.

An indifferent impact assessment

An EIA should bring relevant information to the fore so that the claimed benefits can be weighed and balanced against the damage, along with possibilities of mitigation so that an informed decision may be made. This has not been adequately done in the case of the Ken-Betwa link and the EIA fails on most of its main objectives and core values. The first of these is: “to ensure that the environmental considerations are explicitly addressed and incorporated into the development and decision-making process”:
A 77 m high dam is to be built on a river to siphon off around 1074 MCM (million cubic millimetre) of water, yet under “Impact on Water Environment”, the EIA comments: “no change in the regime of Ken River due to Daudhan dam is anticipated.” One does not need to be an expert to know that dams change the flow of water, hold back sediments and create barriers for fish – all of which would indicate a regime change.

Furthermore, in spite of it being the first dam and submergence area ever to be inside a Tiger Reserve, the EIA has no special section on its impact on biodiversity. Where broached, it comments somewhat incredibly: “The change in habitat is not very significant”. Ignoring the Panna Tiger ReserveField Director’s information that there are territories of two tigresses in the area as well as a large percentage of the park’s vulture breeding area, they write“there are no known breeding grounds for any of the RET (Rare, Endangered, Threatened) species within the project area.” The EIA’s credibility is also dented by its list of mammal species: this includes half a dozen not found in the area; indeed some on the list are not even found in India!

The proponents claim the project’s benefit will be a somewhat incredible 18-fold increase in agricultural production, and not a single environmental cost has been estimated to set against this. Furthermore, key aspects of the link have been ignored or separated as different projects. Thus even on its own terms, there is high doubt as to its efficacy, but examined from an ecological viewpoint the damage is huge and the EIA has glossed over and failed to appreciate or understand this.

The EIA claims that the reservoir “will aid the conservation and management … of species such as Tor tor (Mahsheer).” This overlooks the fact that the reservoir would be fully inside a National Park and Tiger Reserve, whose authorities have already made it clear that the law will allow no such activities. It ignores the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute’s study report comments regarding the “endangered” mahseer: “the river also holds a sizeable population of a famous sport fish Tor tor…the proposed dam would block the free movement of the fishes to their breeding and feeding grounds, hence lead to further depletion of the species from the system.”

Impact on endangered species

In the water, on land, and in the air – several endangered species will be adversely affected. In these decades of vulture depletion, Panna has been one PA where they have held on and now have a chance to come back. Seven of India’s nine vulture species are found here. For the long-billed vulture, especially, the unique steep cliffs of the Ken river gorge above Daudhan provide ideal nesting habitats. The Ken-Betwa project threatens to submerge these. And of course, the tiger: never before has a dam been built completely inside the Critical Tiger Habitat (CTH) of a Tiger Reserve. A CTH is “established on the basis of scientific and objective principles” and the Wildlife Protection Act requires it to be kept inviolate for the purpose of tiger conservation. Thus it is an area that should be a no-go for anything else. It is even more amazing that this dam and the submergence area, more than half of which is in the CTH and most of the rest in the buffer zone, is planned within an area that was considered important enough for a tiger that a new and costly project to reintroduce them to the area occurred. Over the last few years, the Panna tiger population has gone from 0 in 2009 to an estimated 30+ in 2017. The success of this reintroduction programme has been hailed worldwide. Yet now it can be jettisoned under an ‘experimental’ river-link project?

Occasionally the NWDA has tried to suggest that the submergence will bring benefit to the tigers and other animals of the reserve, but this is somewhat disingenuous. They cite the provision of water by the reservoir. However, the park already has the perennial river. They say the draw-down areas will attract and enhance the feature Joanna Van Gruisen population of herbivores, thereby increasing prey base. However, a nearly 10-year study on the ecology of Panna’s tigers by Dr. RS Chundawat shows that Panna already enjoys herbivore density and high prey biomass comparable with India’s best tiger reserves. The limiting factor for the tiger population in Panna is not food but space and connectivity. The submergence area would severely and catastrophically impact both these. Apart from the 90 km2 going underwater, the reservoir would completely bifurcate the park and block tiger access corridors to forests in the west. A tiger reserve already suffering from space mismatch, would be reduced by 162 km2, or more than 28%, according to the Field Director’s calculations – a death knell!

Not really a solution for drought

The key for Bundelkhand’s drought issues lies not in mega projects that will take 7-10 years to complete and bring debatable benefits even then. The way forward is to look to decentralised water management practises that can bring benefit within a year or two. Case studies in the area have established that local solutions are more effective in mitigating the negative impacts of drought and in enhancing farmers’ yields on a sustainable basis without altering the river’s natural process. Per acre, this also costs a tiny fraction of a megaproject.

The other side of water management that is given little attention is that of improving irrigation systems. In many areas, farmers still flood their fields for irrigation. Not only does this entail the use of far more water than required for the crop but it also removes nutrients and means the runoff takes pesticides and other pollutants back into the water systems. Sprinklers and drip irrigation can save as much as 30-70%.

Bundelkhand’s agriculture and wildlife, Raisen and Vidisha’s farmers, all the inhabitants of these areas can benefit if the management of water resources is approached with vision if 21st-century knowledge and awareness are fused with traditional local skills and understanding.

Outdated planning: The Ken-Betwa link project was designed more than 20 years ago. The hydrological and rainfall figures used in its justification were from even earlier. The effects of climate change impinge more with each passing year. Recent research suggests that rainfall is decreasing over ‘surplus’ basins and models show that water yield is increasing in deficit basins. Scientists conclude this “calls for a reevaluation of planning”.

Another paper shows that a minimum of 30 years of data is required to enable a realistic stream-flow assessment in rivers like the Ken. While many disagree with the categorisation of “surplus” for the Ken river’s water, it is hard to categorically refute, since the data on which they base this is not in the public domain.

Environmentally damaging engineering ‘solutions’ such as the proposed Ken-Betwa link are outdated in these – hopefully – more enlightened times. Many parts of the world have, with experience, learned the cost of dams – the USA has removed around 900 dams in the last 15 years and continues to decommission 60-70 annually. The dam age is passing. With her vision, creativity, modern skills, and traditional knowledge, India could leapfrog ahead to lead the world in a more sustainable and localised way of managing and using water.

References

Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFR). nd. Final Report on Study of Aquatic Biodiversity in the River Ken. Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

Ghosh, S, H Vittal, T Sharma, S Karmakar, KS Kasiviswanathan, Y Dhanesh, KP Sudheer et al. 2016. Indian summer monsoon rainfall: implications of contrasting trends in the spatial variability of means and extremes. Public Library of Science (PloS) One 11. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/ journal.pone.0158670. Accessed on April 6, 2017.

Gopal, B and DK Marothia. 2016. Seeking viable solutions to water security in Bundelkhand. Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) 51. https://www.epw.in/ journal/2016/44-45/commentary/ seeking-viable-solutions-watersecurity- bundelkhand.html. Accessed on April 6, 2017.

Jain, VK, MK Jain, and RP Pandey. 2013. Effect of the length of the stream-flow record on truncation level for assessment of stream
flow drought characteristics. Journal of Hydrologic Engineering 19:1361-1373.

Morris, H. 1878. A descriptive and historical account of the Godavery District in the presidency of Madras.London: Trubner & Co. Pp 418.

National Water Development Agency (NWDA). 2010. Detailed Project Report of Ken-Betwa Link Project (Phase 1). Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India.

National Water Development Agency (NWDA). 2015. Ken-Betwa link project (phase-I): Environmental impact assessment and environmental management plan. Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India.
Joanna Van Gruisen Author
Kabini Amin Illustrator
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2017 Mar
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Power lines alter migration patterns

Great bustards in Spain ‘run’ into electricity en route

We know the big names in animal long-distance flights. Jaws drop when we hear that the tiny arctic tern flies between Greenland and Antarctica every year, a round trip of 71,000 kms! Other magnificent animals – humpback whales, monarch butterflies, hordes of wildebeest – travel across the world breaking man’s geographic and political boundaries effortlessly. But one of our many inventions, electricity, might be in the way of animal migrations, literally. Over 20 years, scientists in Spain have studied the threatened Great bustard, a heavily built bird standing tall at about one meter. In their quest to understand the bustard’s migration patterns, they discovered at least one major cause of mortality – collision with power lines.

First, some basic facts: These birds are reluctant fliers. At the study site in central Spain, some birds are sedentary and don’t migrate all their life, while others migrate distances up to 100 km every year. Young birds figure out their ‘lifestyle’ choice by age 3 –whether or not to migrate, how far to fly, in which direction, and so on. Genetics plays a part, of course, but scientists have found that in this species, social learning plays a much bigger role. For instance, if a young bird interacts more with a sedentary adult, it tends to be sedentary all its life. If it hangs out more often with migrating adults, it will probably join their camp.

The study’s big question was to see if and how human causes of mortality affect this migration pattern. The scientists attached radio transmitter backpacks on 180 birds and traced them from the ground, through telescopes, even from an aeroplane! They also counted the number of birds at the breeding site before and after migration, every year for 16 years.
They found that migrants died earlier and more frequently than sedentary birds. And almost 40% of the deaths were caused by colliding with power lines. There is no doubt that power lines are a direct threat to these birds. But there is another important finding. Over the 20 years of observation, they found that the mixed population of migrants and sedentary birds no longer remained truly mixed. The tendency to migrate dropped drastically; more birds chose the sedentary lifestyle. Remember, young birds learn from those around, and with more migrants getting killed by power lines, it is easy to imagine that they followed the survivors, the non-migrants.

Whether this species will eventually become completely sedentary is hard to know, and will require many more decades of study. But if they do, it could be disastrous. Migration helps maintain genetic diversity by allowing gene flow across populations. Without this, animals would be more genetically similar to each other, and if one contracts a disease, others could become susceptible, and before we know it, entire populations could be wiped out. Many species have gone this route before and some have been lost forever, but there is still time to save this endangered species from going extinct.

References:

Palacin, C, JC Alonso, CA Martin and JA Alonso. 2016. Changes in bird-migration patterns associated with human-induced mortality. Conservation Biology 31: 106-115.
Divya Ramesh Author
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2017 Mar
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Editor's Note 7.3

Grasslands and conservation? For most people, that would make sense if one were talking about the African savanna, with its vast herds of wildebeest, gazelles, zebras, giraffe and their large charismatic predators, the lions, cheetahs and wild dogs. But by and large, the topic of conserving grasslands, with their apparently sparse vegetation, harsh climates, and seemingly low productivity, makes little sense to most people. In fact, in large parts of the world grasslands have all but been converted to other land uses, whether agriculture or industry. This is a travesty, given their ecological as well as economic
and cultural importance. Grasslands have a unique biota associated with them. The prairie bison of the North American Midwest, the Bactrian camel of the Central Asian steppe, the blackbuck of India’s tropical grasslands, the rhinoceros of the Terai floodplain grasslands of South Asia, Africa’s ostriches, bustards the world over…the list could go on. Also associated with grasslands around the world are pastoral economies and cultures, exquisitely fine-tuned to these dynamic and unpredictable environments.
In this issue we feature a series of articles on grasslands in India. Abi Tamim Vanak and others describe the widespread perception of grasslands as unproductive wastelands, and the historical as well as ongoing conversion of these landscapes to more ‘productive’ uses. Kalyan Varma provides an account of the traditional ecological knowledge of a pastoral
community, the Dhangars, in a counter to the widespread notion of pastoralism as ecologically degrading. Sandhya Sekhar highlights the shola-grassland ecosystem of the Western Ghats in India, and its unique flora and fauna. Finally, Nigel Collar talks about his work with bustards—grassland-specialist birds that are threatened globally, largely due to threats to their habitat. He ends on a positive note by saying we may yet be in time to save these endangered birds, if we were to focus on conserving the last remaining vestiges of their grassland habitats.

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Editor's Note 7.4

For a lot of us, disease conjures up images of human suffering. But what about animals and plants? Those of us lucky enough to own pets and unlucky enough to lose them to illness have a certain dread for pet disease. Most of us have also heard about historical plant infections that have wiped out food crops and plunged entire countries and civilisations into famine; however, botanical outbreaks on that scale are seemingly on the decline. By virtue of being living organisms,
animals and plants get diseases and infections caused by the same agents that tend to infect humans: bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. This issue is an attempt to highlight the ways in which these organisms impact wildlife, and the implications of the resulting infections.
When we address the pressing issues of wildlife and biodiversity conservation today, disease is something that needs to factor into the equation. Thierry Work elaborates on this issue, giving examples from intricately connected ecological systems. Many times, animal disease can jump to humans in a process known as “spillover”– the topic of David Quammen’s bestselling book, reviewed here by Caitlin Kight. As discussed by Aswathy Vijayakumar and Andrea Phillot, spillovers
are particularly common in tropical areas and other habitats where pathogens and the agents that spread them have been expanding their ranges as a result of climate change.
Another critical factor in wildlife disease is the dynamics between hosts and reservoirs. This is exemplified by the case of India’s stray dogs and Hawaii’s mosquitoes, as described by Aniruddha Belsare and Farah Ishtiaq, respectively. However, Caitlin Kight’s primer on plant disease serves as a reminder that animals are not the only organisms afflicted by infection.
By definition, wildlife diseases impact free-living species—but this doesn’t mean that these illnesses don’t also affect humans in some way. This is the message from Pramod Patil and Milind Watve, who write about how research into wildlife disease can actually improve our ability to study and understand human health.
Although most people would probably deem it preferable that there were no such thing as disease at all, the examples highlighted in this issue indicate that susceptibility to sickness is yet another thing that unites living organisms.
Issue (Guest) Editors: Sandhya Sekar & Caitlin Kight

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Editor's Note 8.2

Whales, dolphins and other marine mammals remain at the forefront of our imagination. On the one hand, we would have read about the thousands that were brutally killed in whaling operations. On the other, given their sociality and interaction with humans, many of us have read anecdotal accounts of their ‘friendliness’ and intelligence. But though they have been part of human folklore and mythology for centuries or even millennia, most of us rarely if ever get to see them in the wild. Personally, a chance encounter with a humpback whale off the west coast of Mexico, slapping the water with its tail fluke less than 50 metres from our boat, is not a sight I am likely to forget.
While marine ecology lags behind terrestrial ecology in many tropical and developing countries, marine mammal research is often even further behind due to logistic constraints and the financial resources required. In India, for example, there has been little in-depth research on marine mammals, with most studies based on strandings, land based sightings and infrequent ship board surveys. In this issue, Dipani Sutaria gives us a perspective of her research in Chilika, tracing the development of her ideas from a focus on biology to the interactions between the people and the dolphins and
development, towards finding conservation solutions. Elrika D’ Souza writes about her work on the foraging ecology of dugongs in the Andaman Islands, and Diya Das interviews her about a recent publication. Kathleen Stafford and Mark Baumgartner write about methods for studying marine mammals and the role that such research plays in conservation. We also carry a photo-essay on Areng Valley, a biologically rich area in Cambodia, which has recently been threatened by development projects.
Issue Editor: Kartik Shanker 

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Editor's Note 8.3

The late novelist David Foster Wallace, in his now-famous graduate commencement speech, narrates the following story: “There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?””
This parable could apply equally to us – city-dwellers. If ever there was a thing we took for granted it would be water. Our connection to this precious commodity, our awareness of it, begins and ends at the mouths of the taps in our homes and workplaces. We know little of the impossible journeys it makes to get there – Where does it come from? How far does it travel? What happens to it along the way? It is only when our taps run dry that we reflect on these questions. It is only then that we wonder about the other lives that are touched by
the water we finally use.
This volume of CC is about these other lives, lives whose connections to fresh water are more direct, more immediate, than ours. In an entirely unplanned way, many of the pieces in the issue are about conflict (maybe a reflection of the precarious state of our freshwater resources): between aboriginals and river ecologists in Australia, between the state and fisherfolk in Assam, among multiple stakeholders along the Ganges in north India. But there are bright sides to this volume as well: a photo-essay on the creatures of the Agumbe monsoon, a piece on the bizarre natural history of axolotls, and an interview about a unique fish count conducted in Vembanad every year.
We hope you enjoy this issue of CC. It is best consumed with a tall, refreshing glass of water.
Issue Editor: Hari Sridhar 

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Bull trawling conflicts in the Uttara Kannada coast: an opportunity for a bottom-up review of the Karnataka Marine Fisheries Law

Fishing is one of the oldest livelihoods in coastal areas. Marine fisheries have provided food, nutrition and livelihood security to coastal communities for centuries. Karnataka, a state along the south-west of India is one of the major marine fishing areas of India. Historically known as the “mackerel coast” it has a coastline of 300 km and a shelf of about 25,000 km2.

The state’s contribution to marine fish landing varies from 6% to 14 % annually. Karnataka has three maritime districts namely Uttara Kannada, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada with an estimated 298 fishing villages. Fisheries of the Karnataka coast supports the livelihood of more than 10 lakh people of which more the 3.5 lakh people are directly dependent. Today, fishing livelihoods are not limited to a particular community or caste group as it has grown as an industry sector and contributes 1.1% total GDP and 5.15% to agriculture GDP.

Prior to the 1950s, fishing was carried out by traditional practices using cast net, rampan net without the use of motor boats or mechanized gear. The introduction of an Indo- Norwegian Project in the 1950’s is held as the beginning of the modernization of Indian fisheries. Trawlers were introduced in 1962 with specially designed nets. The introduction of more intensive fishing gear and the rising popularity of trawlers on the Indian coast resulted in a steep increase in marine catches in the 1970s and 80s. However, catch rates either stabilized or decreased by mid 1990s proving the condition of overfishing of marine resources. Studies indicated that except for a few species, the recovery is very little after the collapse and that about 69 % of species need conservation and management. Fisheries scientists suggested that over-exploitation of fish resources alters stock size and affects ecosystem functioning through successive removal of top predators and large fishes.

This article outlines the scale and impacts of illegal fishing practices along the Karnataka coast and specifically in Uttar Kannada district. This is a direct result of scarcity caused by trawler-led overfishing and compounded by the non-compliance of fishing regulations introduced to regulate the sector. It also focuses on the start of efforts by artisanal fishing unions to manage the conflicts caused by illegal practices and make regulation effective for the prevention of these conflicts. Their efforts are an initial step towards socializing the regulatory framework for fisheries, so that these regulations produce the intended public benefits. Such a bottom-up review of regulation is needed to manage a resource that is vulnerable to the known and lesser known risks of climate change, global economic demands and regulatory capture.

Expansion of mechanized fishery and the failure of regulation:

There has been gradual increase in the number of mechanized boats that operate along the Uttar Kannada coast from 1957 – 1993. Before 1960’s the entire fishing was by traditional methods. Mechanized crafts were introduced in an unregulated manner from the 1960s. The total number mechanized crafts (purse-seines, trawlers and gill-netters) in 1975-76 were 371; it shot- up to 1333 in 1985-86, 1592 in 1995-96 and 2300 in 1999-2000. In the last two decades, there has been a threefold increase in mechanized boats in Uttar Kannada. It is interesting to see that the significant increase in the number of boats in Uttar Kannada did not show the increase in the fish landing. Fish landing has remained the same even though there is an increase in the fishermen population, number of vessels and effort. With the increased entry of mechanized crafts today, about 85% of the catch is captured by the mechanized sector, thereby depriving the traditional fishermen of their source of sustenance. Mechanization of the fisheries sector has not only pushed the sector to its ecological limits but has also caused immense distributive injustice.

Figure 1: Graph showing the comparison between the fish landing and number of fishing vessel over the years Uttara Kannada coast.

To control this increased fishing effort, management tools such as Maritime Zones of India (Regulation of Fishing by Foreign Vessels) Act 1981, the Maritime Zones of India (Regulation of Fishing by Foreign Vessels) Rules 1982, and the State Marine Fisheries Regulation Acts and the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries at the global level etc, were implemented throughout the coastal areas at different points of time. The Karnataka Marine Fishing (Regulation) Act (KMFRA) of 1986 is one of the legislations implemented in Karnataka aimed at controlling the impact of fishing on the marine resources and also to manage the conflicts between traditional and mechanized fishermen.

The KMFRA, states that the government may regulate, restrict or prohibit the fishing in certain areas by particular kind of fishing vessels by notification. It also states that, the government can regulate by way of a notification the number of fishing vessels or specific species fishing in any specified area or a particular season. The act also says that the use of some fishing gear in any specified area as may be prohibited, regulated or prescribed. In making an order under this act the authority should protect the interests of different sections of persons engaged in fishing. This is particularly for those engaged in fishing using traditional fishing craft such as country craft or canoe and the need to maintain law and order in the sea. However, these regulations have not been implemented and the number of mechanized boats have continued to increase. Under KMFRA 1986, an order was passed in 1994, which states that 10 km from the shore in the west coast and 7 km in the east coast is reserved for traditional fishermen. This too has remained unenforced leading to direct conflicts between trawler and artisanal fishermen seeking to live off a dwindling resource.

Bull trawling in 10 km coastal area and resource conflicts

Reduced fish catch due to technology driven overfishing practices and the failure of implementation of marine fisheries regulation has led to conflicts. Destructive fishing practices such as bull trawling and halogen light fishing are prevalent now. Increased availability of mechanized vessels have made more of these being used for bull trawling. Bull trawling is done with two trawl boats with engines of more than 300 hp, even though this is not permitted by the Department of Fisheries. One end of the tow rope is tied to one boat and the other end to the second so that it adds to the speed of the trawl operation.

This practice destroys the seabed because of its high speed and heavy otter boards which are tied at the end of the fishing net to make the net submerge in the water. This method of fishing is hazardous to bottom living fishes and other organisms. It damages fish eggs and juvenile fishes as well as the food of the fishes. Bull trawling has impacted benthic fishes, dolphins, turtles, sharks and skates and therefore the ecosystem.

It gets even worse when these bull trawls are operated near the coast (i.e. within 10 km limit). This destroys the livelihood share of poor traditional fisherman. In recent years the disputes between the traditional fishermen and mechanized fishermen have increased along the Karnataka coast and there have been several incidents where traditional fisher folks have filed complaints to authorities.

In order to study the nature of the conflict, focus group meetings with fishermen were conducted in 20 villages by the Uttara Kannada based team of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR)-Namati Environment Justice program. We spoke to 65 fishermen and visited 7 traditional fishing unions in the district. We asked them questions regarding recent fish landing trends, reason for variation, impacts of illegal fishing practices (bull trawling, night fishing, light fishing). We also asked questions to gauge their knowledge of the law to regulate fisheries, their earlier efforts to resolve the issues they face, complaints filed and response received.

During this research carried out between January 2014 to June 2014 and meetings carried out from June 2016 to January 2017 on the Uttara Kannada coast we found that bull trawling is the most destructive fishing practice affecting the livelihood of traditional fishermen. Most of the boats come from Mangalore, further south on the west coast, and engage in bull trawling in the Uttara Kannada. When bull-trawling operations are carried out near the coast, (within 10 km limit) the traditional fishermen return empty-handed. The high speed trawl boats disturb the shallow coastal water making it more turbid, so fishes and prawns migrate to other regions. Venkatesh Moger president of the Traditional fishing union from Bhatkal, says that because of the bull trawling the traditional boats do not get enough fish catch during the season.

Out of the 65 people we spoke to 37 people directly attributed this practice to the decline in fish catch. Among the remaining 28 people few people partially attributed bull trawling and also mentioned the added effects of night fishing and smaller mesh size. A few among them said that bull trawling may not be the reason for overall decline in the fish catch since it is carried out only for three months when the prawns are abundant (September to November). The remaining 12 people reported that fish catch is generally decreasing because of more boats and overfishing. Out of the seven unions we visited six union members held that bull trawling is the major threat and that it takes away the fish catch share of traditional fishermen. Only one union from Manki village was not sure about the role of bull trawling in the decline in the fish catch and said that it could be due to the increase in the number of fishing vessels.

As per the data collected from the interviews, group discussions and newspaper reports, there have been more than 34 instances of conflicts between traditional fishermen and mechanized fishermen because of bull trawling during the season of 2014 -2015. Traditional fishermen from Bhatkal had filed five complaints to the Department of Fisheries and two complaints to the trawl boat union in Mangalore, but no action was taken.
Unlike all the fishermen interviewed who discussed the issue of bull trawling as a matter that requires attention, the fisheries department was indifferent to questions posed to them about this practice. When we visited the Fisheries Department they said that there is no fishing practice such as bull trawling and they had not given permission for it.

In practice, once the prawn season is over by November, bull trawling also stops and the same boats are then used for normal trawling. The seasonal nature of these practices makes timely monitoring very crucial but the fisheries department does not have enough staff to monitor these practices.
Visits and discussions with the Fisheries Department offices in district revealed that there is no monitoring authority to oversee illegal fishing activities in Karnataka. They said that they could only pass an order or cancel licenses if they come to know of violations/illegalities. But, they do not have manpower to investigate these issues on their own, and it is not their duty to monitor illegal activities along the coast.

Bottom-up efforts to review fisheries regulation

The study clearly revealed that bull trawling is a threat for traditional fishermen and people have approached authorities for solutions. However, even though the activity could be prohibited exercising clause ‘a’ and ‘d’ of Subsection 1 under section C, of KMFRA, there is no order issued specifically mentioning on bull trawling. Therefore we worked with the fisher communities to see if the law can be reviewed. A carefully drafted demand letter was sent by the Bhatkal Traditional Fishermen Union (Bhatkal is an important fishing centre) to the Fisheries department to reiterate the need for a ban on bull trawling along the coast of Uttara Kannada.

In November 2016, the Directorate of Fisheries of the Karnataka State Government issued an order saying bull trawling is a violation of KMFRA and action shall be taken as per the provisions of the Act. This time the artisanal fisheries unions were aware of the legal framework since they had learnt the KMFRA, 1986 through the trainings conducted by CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program.They also developed a format to file complaints on fisheries law violations using the provisions given in the KMFRA, 1986. As part of their efforts to bring the legal prohibition of bull trawling to life, the unions are engaged in continuous monitoring of fisheries violations, collection of evidence and filing complaints to bring the issue to the notice of authorities and seek specific remedies.

Following the trainings, recommendations for changes to the law and implementation mechanisms were drafted along with fisher communities. The main ones were the following:

  • The Fisheries Department should issue an order under KMFRA to regulate the number of mechanized crafts that can be operated in a specific area.
  • The KMFRA should also include conservation clauses for better management of fisheries. Currently, the law only mentions licensing of fishing vessels and a few restrictions according to season and gear type. Moreover, the department of fisheries aims to increase fish landing rather than conservation and management.
  • For the effective implementation of these management measures, there is a need to understand the fishers’ perception by authorities and policy makers on the issues related to management of resources and involve them in monitoring, as they are the primary users of the resources. The Department of Fisheries had failed to implement the existing regulation because of insufficient manpower and absence of data on compliance and monitoring. This is despite submissions of complaints and evidence.

An opportunity to secure environment justice using marine regulations

The active involvement of fishing unions and artisanal fishers of Uttara Kannada in the legal training programs is the basis of their legal empowerment. An informed participation of the community and especially the unions can lead to their active role in the implementation of marine regulations and engagement with the fisheries department on the issue of bull trawling conflicts. Their interest in deliberating the clauses of the KMFRA offers a new opportunity for the review of marine regulations in the state. Such a review if done with collaboration of fisher unions will result in framing better and more evidence-based regulations that that respond to the issues of production and fair distribution of fishery resources. These two aspects are the essential ingredients of environment justice.

References:

Bhathal B and D Pauly. 2008. ‘Fishing down marine food webs’ and spatial expansion of coastal fisheries in India, 1950 – 2000. Fisheries Research, 91: 26 – 34.

Caddy JF and GD Sharp. 1986. An ecological framework for marine fishery investigation. FAO fishery technology paper, 283: 1 – 52.

Hutchings JA. 2000. Collapse and recovery of marine fishes. Nature, 406: 882 – 885.

Mohamed KS, C Muthia, PU Zacharia, KK Sukumaran, P Rohit, PK Krishna Kumar. 1998. Marine Fisheries of Karnataka State, India, Naga, the ICLARM Quarterly. NFDB. 2017. National fisheries Development Board, https://nfdb.gov.in/about-indian-fisheries.htm

Rao KV and K Dorairaj. 1968. Exploratory trawling off Goa by the Government of India fisheries vessels. Indian Journal of Fisheries, 15: 1 – 13.
Mahabaleshwar Hegde Author
Manju Menon Author
Aditya Bharadwaj Illustrator
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2017 Jun
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A day in the life of lion conservationist

My name is Enoch and I study lions on the savannahs of Africa. Being a lion conservationist is not always easy. It often involves working to minimize conflict between humans and lions. However, it is very interesting and very rewarding.

In the area I work, the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, both humans and lions rely on the same land. It provides them both with food and shelter. It is home to both. Sometimes this can lead to conflict, either because they need to use the same resources, for example, water or land, or because the cattle which the humans keep for food are also a tempting meal for the lions. And when threatened, both humans and lions can be dangerous. Both will defend themselves with violence. So my job isn’t easy.

What is my most important skill? Doing without sleep. Each day brings different challenges, but every day is busy. With other rangers, I live much of the time in a camping site next to the park gate. Many days we visit local households affected by lions killing their livestock, to install lion-proof bomas (livestock enclosures). Before first light, we all load up in the Landrover and head off to the field. This morning, we climb up the Ololoolo escarpment, and before we reach the village of Kawai, we spot a wounded giraffe. We stop to check on it and realize that he has been shot by a poisoned arrow. We cannot deal with him alone, so call the Kenya Wildlife Services for help. Sadly, they cannot save him this time.

At Kawai, we hear that a pride of 11 lions went up the escarpment from the National Reserve, killing one cow and injuring several others. Visiting the homes of the cattle owners, we take photographs of the cow’s injuries and strengthen the fences to protect them from further attacks. We will pay compensation to the cattle owners for their losses, with money from our organization and from the government. Our organization must also pay for half the cost of the new fences. Protecting people, their cattle and the lions can be expensive. We then head into the bush to find the lions and drive them back to the Reserve. If they are allowed to stay close to the community’s homes, they may attack more livestock, which may result in them being attacked in turn by the local people.

In the afternoon, more villages to visit, more conflicts to resolve. Eventually, at 9 p.m., we turn for home. Tired as we are, as we drive back, we feel so fulfilled and close to the maker, Mother Nature. We see all the night wildlife – spring hares, porcupines, honey badgers – all busy finding food and enjoying their home.

As tired as African wild dogs, we eventually lie down to sleep at 11.30 p.m. Hopefully, we won’t be called on to respond to attacks by poachers tonight, as we are sometimes! Tomorrow we must begin removing some wire traps we have found which were put in the bush by poachers, to catch wildlife for meat, before any animals are hurt. But for now, while the lions, the hares, and the porcupines wander the bush, it is time for us to sleep!

Illustration: Anmol Shrivastava
Enoch Mobisa Author
Anmol Shrivastava Illustrator
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2017 Mar
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Introducing COP Watch

The changing climate of climate change policy since the Paris Agreement

As some of you may remember, in issue 9.4 of Current Conservation (available to read online here: https://www.currentconservation.org/q=issue/9.4), we ran an article in which we explored the implications of the COP21 climate talks, which took place in Paris in December 2015.

What happened in Paris?

To recap, in March 1994 the Rio Convention, which included the adoption of the ground-breaking United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), came into force (more information on the UNFCCC can be found by following this link: https://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/ items/6036.php).

Since then, the annual Conference of Parties (COP) has met to review the Convention’s implementation. COP now has a near global membership of 195 countries. In December 2015, representatives from these 195 countries met in Paris for the 21st COP.

As a result of the negotiations, these representatives signed a treaty which pledged them to “(hold) the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”.

What has happened since the Paris talks?

On 4th November 2016, the Paris agreement was to come into force.
At the time of writing in April 2017, 142 of those 195 countries which originally signed have since ratified the treaty (i.e. they have put the terms of the agreement into national law).

In March 2017, the World Meteorological Organisation’s annual report revealed that in 2016, globally averaged temperature reached 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels. So if we are to stick to the most ambitious target outlined in the Paris agreement, we now have only 0.4°C to play with.

What is predicted to happen in the future?

In terms of the rate of future temperature increases, there isn’t a single answer (1) to this question. But the key point is that there is an almost linear relationship between the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere and the increase in global temperature. In other words, when looked at simply, lower emissions = a smaller increase in temperature.

Why this fixation on “below 2°C”?

Fundamentally, the “below 2°C” target simply marks a line in the sand. It is not the line beyond which the effects of climate change will become apparent. As we have said, any more CO2 emitted will cause warming. The next key point is that any warming will have consequences.

In fact, we are already seeing these consequences. According to the World Meteorological Organisation’s annual report, published in March 2017, 2016 was the warmest year on record, reaching, as we have mentioned, 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels. 2016 also broke a range of other climate records:

  • Highest global average sea surface temperatures.
  • Record temperatures in Thailand and India; the 54°C recorded at Mitribah in Kuwait, subject to ratification, is the highest temperature ever recorded for the entire Asian continent.
  • For the first time during the month of November, global sea ice dropped to more than 4 million square kilometres
    below average.

Meanwhile, flooding, droughts and other extreme weather events displaced thousands of people. So even if we hit the “below 2°C” target, some regions are still likely to experience severe consequences. But, 2°C provides a realistic target, at the lower end of projected temperature increases, behind which governments and nations can throw their collective efforts.

What can we do?

The answer to this question is also very complex. There are many actions we can take at an individual level which will reduce our personal emissions, and it is hard to underestimate the importance of these actions – if we all reduce by a bit, collectively we’ll reduce by a lot.

But the focus of our new section, COP Watch, is governmental action in response to the Paris talks. Why? Because the challenge of climate change is so enormous that effective action, in my opinion at least, must be led by policy change at the very top of government. We need policy which fundamentally alters our current industrial and economic reliance on fossil fuels. So – we should keep a close eye on what steps our governments are, and aren’t taking, and make sure they live up to their obligations under the Paris treaty.

What is the aim of COP Watch?

The aim of COP Watch is to make it easier for you to stay updated. To help you keep this ‘close eye’ on your governments. This new section in Current Conservation will have two major elements:

  1. We will bring you the headline news – the policies agreed by governments to achieve their COP commitments. We will also highlight those countries who are prominently failing to make the steps required.
  2. We will bring you an update of whether we are on track to hit the 1.5°C target.
“Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now.” Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, 2009-2017


References:

COP21. COP – What’s it all about? https://www.cop21paris.org/about/cop21. Accessed on April 5, 2017.

Creasey, M. 2015. Climate change and conservation. Current Conservation 9(4): 28-33.

Pachauri, RK, MR Allen, VR Barros, J Broome, W Cramer, R Christ, JA Church et al. 2014. Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 pp.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). 2015. Paris Agreement – status of ratification. https://unfcccint/paris_agreement/items/9444.php. Accessed on April 6, 2017.

World Meteorological Organization. 2017. Climate breaks multiple records in 2016, with global impacts (Press release). https://public.wmo.int/en/media/pressrelease/climate-breaks-multiplerecords2016-global-impacts. Accessed on April 5, 2017.

Appendix:

As a guide for predicting future temperatures under different levels of emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) use the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The RCPs, are 4 projections for possible future global temperatures, under different levels of greenhouse gas emission.

They take into account the key factors which will influence the degree to which we manage to reduce emissions – climate policy, energy use, land use patterns, technology, population size, economic activity, and lifestyle, and outline a set of possible futures based on levels of emissions under various permutations of these variables.

  • Under both RCPs 6.0 & 8.5, the baseline scenarios in which there is little or no attempt to reduce emissions, global surface temperatures are projected to exceed 2°C (in the latter case exceeding 4°C) above pre-industrial
    temperatures.
  • Following RCP 4.5 is projected to result in an increase roughly in line with 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
  • Under RCP 2.6 global warming is projected to likely stay below 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, the minimum
    target of the Paris talks.
Matthew Creasey Author
Matthew Creasey Photographer
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11.1

2017 Mar
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Editors Note 10.4

The last year has seen an array of social movements across the world which have changed political and cultural landscapes, for better or worse. Conflicts over resources and ideologies, covering both urban and rural demographics have taken over headlines both overseas and at home. In this issue our authors have tried to capture the need for us all to stay informed of developments around us, especially in this so-called ‘post-truth’ era. Caitlin Kight reviews Andrea Wulf’s tribute to Alexander von Humboldt, once a household name but now forgotten by most. Making knowledge accessible to laymen has never been more critical and we would do well to imitate Humboldt’s efforts. KanchiKohli and Manju Menon lay bare the murky world of compensation for environmental damage. Clarice Wambua and Rose Birgen, describe the common tensions between large development activities and local community livelihoods through their case study from Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya. Bharti Dharapuram interviews Harini Nagendra about the field of urban ecology and Harini’s work addressing Bangalore’s environmental woes. She also reviews Harini’s new book which traces Bangalore’s environmental history.
Issue editors: Marianne Manuel 

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Editor's Note 10.1

Fill in the blank: One key word that should always send up a red flag to all of us who care about animals is “_______________”. . . . When I hear that word, I know for sure that there is some sort of hunting, fishing, trapping, etc., involved . . .
The correct answer is “conservation”. Conservationists, in their efforts to save the world’s species, sometimes, need to capture, translocate, cage, injure and even kill individual animals. Not surprisingly, these actions raise the hackles of animal rights and welfare groups – such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), from whose website1 the above lines were taken – whose aim is to protect the rights of every single individual animal. The articles in this edition of CC all deal with the thorny issue of animal rights in conservation: should we eradicate invasive animals from islands? How should we deal with stray dogs that attack wildlife in the Trans- Himalayas? Or feral horses that destroy natural vegetation in Australia? Do zoo animals have a role in conservation?
We are also happy to announce the launch of a Current Conservation children’s section, CCKids, from this edition onwards. More about this from our editors Matt, Ankila and Kalyani. Click here: CCKids
Issue Editor: Hari Sridhar
 

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