end of year wrap-up 2010

Photo: Akhila Vijayaraghavan ©

The year of biodiversity has ended with a lot of up and downs, just like any other year. 2010 has marked the hottest year on record, it is also a year with untold tragedies of the Haitian earthquake, the BP spill, Icelandic volcanic ash, Chinese earthquake, Pakistani floods - all of which has contributed to severe loss in economy and of life.

Over all international news seemed bleak with little causes for rejoicing. However when it comes to biodiversity, the news is a little more encouraging. It all started with the UN declared this year international year of biodiversity. Then the TEEB report finally put a monetary value on biodiversity loss, thus putting it in a political radar - this report did for biodiversity what the Stern report did for climate change.

The CBD conference that was held in Nagoya, Japan saw delegates agreeing to adopt Biodiversity Targets which will guide national strategies and enhance cooperation among developing countries.

Post the Cancun climate-conference governments have agreed on plans to save forests which will not only halt climate change but also aid in biodiversity conservation. In addition to preserving existing rainforest cover, tiger protection also received a boost. Governments of India, Russia, China and S.E Asia joined hands for the first time to make serious inroads into the protection of the tiger.

Just today I read the news that nine species previously declared extinct were re-discovered. British fauna and flora seem to be thriving in spite of the extreme cold weather. All of these little signs are symbols of hope that Life is fighting back. However it does still remain that we are rapidly reducing the Planet's regenerative capacity.

According to UN Under-Secretary General Achim Steiner, "We are destroying life on Earth. The plants and animals, fungi and micro-organisms that produce and clean our ait, generate drinking water, hydro-power and irrigation; provide food, shelter and medicines and also bring joy and a spiritual dimension to our daily lives need a helping hand - if not for their sakes, but for our own."

Psychologists are of the opinion that children growing up these days spend too much time indoors with computer games and suffer from 'Nature deficit disorder'. E.O. Wilson the famed biologist reckons that all humans have a natural affinity for nature which he calles 'biophilia' and current lifestyles are suppressing this. Therefore finding more ways for people to connect with nature may lead to more of it being conserved.

As a New Year's resolution, let each one of us make the effort to appreciate, to be awed, to enjoy and preserve the wonderful world around us.

reintroducing the cheetah

I first read the proposals of the cheetah reintroduction scheme in India back in 2009. Today it is in the news that the Central Government has approved of a $65 million plan to bring the cheetah back to India.

Cheetahs became extinct in India in the 1960s as they were excessively hunted. The plan is to import the cats from Africa, Middle-East and Iran. Kuno Palpur and Nauradehi wildlife sanctuaries in MP and Shahgarh area near Jaisalmer in Rajasthan have been selected as the reintroduction site. The program will take about 3 years to complete in various phases and will have IUCN involvement along the way.

Jairam Ramesh the Indian Minister of Environment has been quoted saying that the reintroduction of the cheetah will improve the health of Indian grasslands. Grasslands are one of the most productive terrestrial ecosystems and have been severely exploited by over-grazing and agriculture. Restoring the balance of this ecosystem will mean that other species depending on the grasslands will also flourish. The endangered imperiled great Indian bustard and caracal among others will benefit from the reintroduction of an apex predator whose role is to restore balance to the ecosystem.

One of the most successful reintroduction programs to date is the Yellowstone program to bring back the wolves. It was fraught with complications and almost did not take off, the cheetah program will face similar challenges. Animals that are reintroduced suffer various degrees of stress from transportation to adaptive problems that can affect their reproductive abilities.

If this program is successful, it will be a great boost to Indian wildlife as well as tourism in these areas. The ecosystem of the grass-lands will also benefit greatly due to the introduction of an apex predator. This reintroduction program should also be done without diverting funds away from other conservation programs in the country, most importantly the tiger conservation.

This is something that has been promised by the MoEF and only time will tell if the program can be deemed a success. With only 10,000 cheetahs left in the wild world-over, increasing their range is essential to the species' survival. Cheetahs unlike other cats don't breed well in captivity and are prone to various genetic ailments and diseases due to less diversity and inter-breeding.

Introduction of the cheetah in India will see that the species thrives as a separate sub-species in the years to come. The Asiatic cheetah thrives only in Iran and it is critically endangered - this is the same species that was once abundant in India. With the reintroduction, India can boast that it is the only country in the world that hosts 6 of the 8 big cat species.

I'm skeptical and hopeful at the same time. It seems to me that Indian wildlife authorities are trying to open a new can of worms without figuring out methods to deal with existing wildlife problems. All of the big cats in India are endangered - with this kind of track record, can the cheetah hope to survive?

Photo: Painting of Akbar hunting wiht locally trapped Asiatic Cheetahs c. 1602. He was said to have had 1000 cheetahs assisting in his royal hunts.

my take on Yosemite...

Photo: Akhila Vijayaraghavan © View of the Yosemite Valley

Photography has been a great passion and I am an ardent hobby photographer. I pretty much make photographs of everything although there are moments that are truly sublime. These moments usually happen when I catch the light at the right time or am suddenly able to 'see' differently. This shift of perception is tangible and it usually happens when I'm photographing landscapes or doing macros.

Art is an accurate barometer of the socio-political and economic atmosphere . It not only reflects these events but also in some way has the ability to influence or change. All great artists know this, which is why they intuitively realize that they have a responsibility towards something bigger than themselves.

In the forum of art and environmental protection, there are countless artists who have made their contributions known. In the era of Woodstock, several musicians sprang forth with anthems that are still popular today. There are others who has made their mark by extrapolating their love of Nature in their work and for me, one of the greats in this category is Ansel Adams. His photographs of America's National Parks pushes past the black and white images and seeks to lodge itself deep inside the retina. Of all the places he photographed, he loved Yosemite the best and it's not hard to see why to anyone who has been there.

Yosemite is one of those places on Earth that seems to have rolled right off of God's hands. Its magnificence is of a scale unto its own - ethereal, sublime, majestic and yet playful. I was in Heaven with mouth-open awe the whole time I was there and couldn't stop snapping away. The beauty of such places cannot be adequately described in words, photographs or even through merely seeing but only by feeling.

Adams' is one of the people who understood this and his work not only manages to convey the silent grandeur of such places but also equally firmly suggests at conservation. The National Parks in America saw an influx of visitors through Adams' work and this still continues to hold true. This was his most important contribution to the environmental movement - to make people go and appreciate their natural surroundings. All conservation starts from the inward retreat upon confrontation of beauty and this is something that he understood very well.

There are so few places on Earth untouched by human activity and National Parks are meant to be protected habitat. Stresses felt on the rest of the world will be felt even in these places. Respect for the natural environment will go a long way to ensure that these little oases of Paradise remain protected.

Sometimes I get to places when God is ready to have somebody click the shutter - Ansel Adams

tragedy of the commons

Photo Courtesy: www.fao.org

The tragedy of the commons is a phenomenon that was first written about by Garrett Hardin in 1968. In his article published in Science he describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest will ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen.

Central to Hardin's article is an example, a hypothetical and simplified situation from medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land (the commons), on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's example, it is in each herder's interest to put the next (and succeeding) cows he acquires onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the commons is exceeded and it is damaged for all as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the commons is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the commons will be destroyed to the detriment of all.

This concept that the 'commons' is available to everyone to use and abuse without regulation is the primary stumbling block towards a sustainable future. The abuse of the commons is being seen in many environmental scenarios like destruction of land resources, deforestation, air pollution, overfishing etc. Due to the lack of ownership, there is also a lack of conscience. Increase in population only increases the pressure on the commons.

I have previously argued that the definition of sustainability itself lends itself to an anti-growth model because it assumes that we are compromising the future generations' ability to enjoy the level of comfort that we do and because our current consumption patterns means that resources will run out. It does not address the issue of employing a new business model in order to overcome the tragedy of commons.

Businesses traditionally considered pollution and other abuse to the commons as an externality - a phenomenon that occurs during the normal course of doing business. Now however, there is a stark realisation that the environment can no longer be considered an externality. In fact any business model that still operates on this precept is ultimately an anti-growth model.

Business as usual needs a total reorganization in the way it operates. The age of big businesses and the off shoots of globalization like off-shore manufacturing is part of the redundant business model which still does not negate the tragedy of commons. It only makes the problem their problem but what it fails to recognize is that ultimately it is our problem.

A model of new-age business with sustainability at its core depends on social development and a bottom-up approach to knowledge transfer and horizontal management. This is done through the involvement of the community in community projects and allocation of the commons so that it is no under common jurisdiction but individual responsibility.

The backbone of every big business should be based on social development if it is to thrive. Social development is not just a localised 'small-time' tool. It can be as big or as small as one envisions. One of the biggest dairy companies in India, Amul uses this as a philosophy. Corporate social responsibility becomes an empty sentiment if it is not fully integrated into the daily workings of the business in question.

brown, basted and ready to be carved...

Today I submitted my thesis. I should be feeling elated, with a sense of achievement. Instead I just feel exhausted and worried. All of the literature that I read is still spinning circles in my head and I'm left wondering how many animals are in the same situation as the tuna, how many others have lost the fight like the Yangtze River Dolphin declared extinct in 2006. I keep fast-forwarding three years and speculating whether the same announcement awaits the Bluefin Tuna or the Mountain Gorilla or the Amur Leopard or the Orangutan or countless other species that live their lives on a balance.

Biodiversity loss is one of the most alarming consequence of human activities on the planet. The influence of global warming is only accelerating this. The Polar Bear which was added IUCN Red List was the first animal to be included due to direct man-made activity. The species that we aware of and have catalogued only contains a small portion of the wealth on this Earth, there are many many types of plants, animals, birds, trees, insects out there waiting to be discovered - like the renowned naturalist E.O. Wilson said "we are destroying the library even before it has been catalogued". But what we don't know won't hurt us, right? wrong!

Through the loss of species both known and unknown we are not only losing an evolutionary link, we are also losing a potential use of and for that organism. Every organism supports the fabric of life in some unique way, therefore when we lose an animal or plant, we also lose a service. It can be medicinal purposes; the service of acting as a decomposer, a pollinator, a scavenger, a top-predator etc.

Preservation of biodiversity is one of the most important aspects of environmentalism. Respecting the boundaries of the natural world is no longer just an ideology, it is an issue of morality. Our needs-based consumption patterns must be curbed and we must remember that "we do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children". It does not speak well of us as a 'civilized' generation to stand idly by and condone the destruction of species for short-term economic gain. Apathy in this case may as well be akin to participation. This epoch of death will be judged harshly unless we gather forces now to persevere and preserve.

The human race is at the crux of our History, a point that is testing our mettle and our maturity. If there was ever a more louder call for action, it is now. The choice between the Kingdom of Heaven and total annihilation is out there for our taking.