Thread by @RazaKazmi17

Hardline conservationists keep mum when rights of people are violated flouting laws, forest rights activists keep mum when locals slaughter wildlife flouting laws. This is the crux of the divide between most rights groups & conservation groups. (1/n)

epaper.telegraphindia.com/imageview_2648…

Rights activists point out, rightly so, how conservation groups and conservationists are absent from large & small scale people's struggles against destruction of forests by industrial and infrastructure projects. However, it's also true that rights groups are equally absent(2/n)

& silent when locals indulge in wholesale slaughter of wildlife. There are dozens of such "hunting festivals", practiced by various tribes across central & east-central India that may last weeks. Unsurprisingly, these forests are also textbook ex. of "empty forest syndromes"(3/n)

where all large & medium mammalian fauna has been rendered extinct due to overhunting. Last year, apart from hundreds of smaller animals, the above hunting festival in Bengal also resulted in the killing of a tiger, the first to pop up in the area in more than 100 years. (4/n)

The forest department is completely helpless & incapable of stopping such festivals simply because there are thousands of forest dwellers (& even non forest dwellers) entering the forest to kill anything & everything they can find, and FD doesn't have the capacities to stop (5/n)

such a heavy influx of hunters. Nothing exemplifies FD's helplessness better than this image from 2018 where Purabi Mahto, Assistant DFO Midnapore, held onto the feet of one of the elders in the hunting party of ~5000 men pleading them to stop the massacre. Unfortunately, (6/n)

these appeals had no effect & by the end of the hunt, apart from the tiger, thousands of wild animals had been slaughtered, ranging from myriad birds to wolves, jackals, foxes, barking deers, boars, civets, porcupines, pangolins, squirrels, mongoose, jungle cats, monitors, (7/n)

snakes, etc. Locals take no consideration of whether the animal is a female or male, pregnant or not, a young one or an adult, rare or common. Anything and everything that moves is fair game in the already extremely wildlife-depleted forests of these areas. A small sample (8/n)

of the scale of killings can be gauged from these images. (most of these images were taken by members of a local wildlife conservation group called HEAL who have been leading a lone brave struggle to bring an attitudinal among communities against such slaughter). (9/n)

Some more images of the slaughter that happens each year in Midnapore, Jhargram, etc. It must be remembered that this documentation is from a small part of Bengal, similar hunts are organised by various tribes across Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, AP, Telangana and so on.(10/n)

Amidst all this carnage, one never heard a word from rights activists and various advocacy groups. And that is hypocritical, because while these groups want traditional conservation to self-introspect (again, rightly so) and reform, they don't seem to be doing the same (11/n)

when it comes to themselves, there is little self-reflection & a will to admit that there might be aspects in their own ideological positions where reform is needed. Conservationists must join them in people's and rights struggles, but they too need to join conservationists(12/n)

to put an end to such mindless killing. If one keeps a stoic silence on such destruction of wildlife by locals that is illegal, one loses moral right to question the stoic silence of many conservationists on other illegalities. You two become the two sides of same coin (13/n)

It's true that tribals are the best protectors of forest, but forest protection needn't necessarily mean wildlife conservation. The two are not same. Unfortunately, uptil now all I see is rights group making blanket pronouncements that all tribals and forest dwellers are (14/n)

"natural conservationists", "best protectors of wildlife" and so on. I have pointed time and again how such broad brushing is absolutely inaccurate, be it done by rights groups or by conservationists who paint all tribals and forest dwellers as enemies of wildlife (15/n)

So next time you hear the rhetoric of all forest dwellers being "born conservationists" "natural protectors of wildlife" remember the above & these images, and read up on the state of wildlife across tribal dominated east-central, west-central and north-east Indian forests (16/n)

And the next time you hear the rhetoric of all forest dwellers being "enemies of wildlife", "impediment to conservation" read up on Idu Mishmis of Dibang, Chenchus of Nallamalla, the Bishnois, the Soligas, & remember these images from community conserved forests of Dibang. (17/n)

Also read this thread to know more about the incredible tale of Idu Mishmi tribals and their "tiger brothers" by Sahil Nijhawan.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SanctuaryAsia/status/1115163665290993664

Remember, no one size fits all model ever works, be it in conservation, forest protection or any other allied issue. (18/n)

Let's hope all of us conservationists, rights groups, and local communities - can come together to safeguard our common heritage and battle our common adversaries. But the first step towards doing so will be discarding dogma, rhetorics and accepting evidence based truths (n/n)

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan Cyclone or no cyclone, yet another mass hunting 'festival' to go ahead. Thousands of hunters will descend upon Jharkhand's Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary for the annual 'Sendra' (Hunt) on 6th May and kill anything & everything they can find, except elephants. Local extinctions have +

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan already been a reality here. Overhunting by local tribes has already extirpated tigers, leopards, wild dogs, gaur, sambar and most other medium sized mammals over the years. The smaller ones barely hang on. However, what is even more problematic is the local press coverage of +

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan event. All Hindi press reports always refer to the hordes of hunters as "Sendra Veer" which translates to "Warriors/Barvehearts of the Hunt". The press reports after the hunt glorify their exploits as "fearless", "brave", how "enterprising" they were in escaping the forest dept+

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan This glorification of hunting in local press, implicitly attributing it as a symbol of "masculinity", etc. ensures popularity & continued appeal for mass hunting among successive generations. Following are past headlines in newspapers, the hunters are lauded as "Veer" everywhere+

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan The least that can be done is to stop glorifying this as "bravery", there's no bravery in being part of a crowd of thousands descending and spearing, snaring or shooting a hapless deer or a giant squirrel! Nor are these young boys, many of them from towns near & afar, warriors!

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan Now that 4 days have passed since the hunt, some sketchy picture on the results of the hunt are emerging. The fact that 6th May turned out to be LS election polling dates and then there were rains and poor weather the entire day of the hunt minimised casualties & no. of hunters.+

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan Against the usual >5000 hunters, this year saw the numbers between 1500-2000. The FD claims no animals were killed but local sources confirmed a few deers and wild boars, a couple of Giant Squirrels, hares, etc. being hunted. The FD seized some traps, arrows and spears.

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan As usual, no arrests were made, no cases were filed against Adivasis by dept. Instead, in an effort to win hearts & minds, FD set up free health check-up & free medicine distribution kiosks for Adivasis, both hunters & thousands of non-hunters, participating in the social event.

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan @AdivasisMatter @alterlaw @mdmadhusudan @nehaa_sinha @abi_vanak Forest Guards are often stereotyped as a negative monolith by many rights activists, regularly broad brushed as 'anti-tribal', 'opressors', 'exploiters', etc. The pics in last tweet are one of many examples illustrating why like all stereotypes, this broad-brushing is inaccurate+

@ForestRightsAct @ikukreti @ChitrangadaC @AratiKumarRao @nit_set @Kum_Sambhav @trishantsimlai @PKashwan @AdivasisMatter @alterlaw @mdmadhusudan @nehaa_sinha @abi_vanak They could've booked 100s of people under WLPA, IFA, etc during this event, they're legally empowered to do so.But instead, they chose to do this - arrange & serve free food (wet grams), water, etc. to 100s of tired Adivasi men, women & kids, including hunters wielding weapons.