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Pardhis are a nomadic community that since the time of the Mughal emperors, have been hired to help in shikar (hunting), whether it was for sport for the British or for the royal kitchens of the ‘zameendars’ (landowners). However, due to combined efforts of the Forest Department and NGO’s, a large part of the population has given up hunting. Thus, ‘Walk with the Pardhis’, an initiative undertaken by Last Wilderness Foundation in association with Taj Safaris and Forest Department, Panna Tiger Reserve not only encourages this reformation, but also aims at providing an alternative source of livelihood for the community members while utilizing their already existing skill sets.
The crux of the venture is to go on an experiential walk in the wilderness with the people of the forest wherein, you will be privy to the age old knowledge of the Pardhi community members along with some spectacular stories from the forest. This initiative is also bound to help you reconnect with the wilderness, as well as help ‘read’ the forest as the Pardhis do, where the trained Pardhi guide will lead a nature trail for tourists, students or nature enthusiasts on a designated trail/ route in Panna. To know more about this trail, or to go on a walk with the community members, please write to us at – conservation@thelastwilderness.org The Corbett Foundation (TCF) has been working in Bandhavgarh-Sanjay Dubri Corridor (BSDC), an important forested landscape that connects Bandhavgarh and Sanjay tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh. Despite being an important connecting corridor of these tiger reserves, awareness about tiger and overall biodiversity conservation in quite low among the villages of BSDC. Community dependence on the forest in BSDC for cattle grazing, firewood collection and collection of minor forest products is very high. There have also been cases of tiger deaths from BSDC in the past raising suspicions about poaching. All this has a direct link to a lack of awareness about the need to conserve the forests and wildlife among the local communities.
Unless the level awareness is raised, it is difficult to expect success in conservation and protection of flora-fauna. Therefore, TCF felt a pressing need to spread environmental awareness among the student community to make them realize the seriousness of the issues at hand. To bridge this gap, TCF has published a 116-page pictorial booklet titled Hamare Van, Hamare Gaon providing an overall insight about the local biodiversity of BSDC, its ecological values and the need for its conservation. The language of this first-of-its-kind publication purposefully has been kept as hindi so that the contents of the publication and the important conservation message therein reaches to as many schools in BSDC and in Bandhavgarh and Sanjay-Dubri tiger reserves. Over 27-28th April 2019, Amrita had a pop-up of her new venture, Black Orchid, at Artists & Fleas (A&F) in Williamsburg and got the chance to see if Brooklyn loved making clothes from scraps as much as her. What ensued was a two day long conversation of what it means to be part of slow fashion and where it could take us. Sarika brought with her the final piece of this conversation, about how what we buy affects both people and nature in far off places, by sharing her work and selling tribal jewelry. Creating things is fun and we seldom value the process enough in our daily lives. What better way to discuss our work, being mindful consumers and sustainability of our resources than to directly meet people at markets. Amrita and Sarika got a chance to do exactly that at the melting-pot that is A&F on Saturday with the Smorgasburg in full flow. Tourists from many different countries who came through the pop-ups got a glimpse of the work we do in our lab, conservation in central India, and #whatascientistlookslike when they are also a maker / crafter / doing outreach! Apart from tourists, they had interest from other makers (on their own journey in being conscious consumers), friends and family.  Prachi Thatte PhD student, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India ‘Sunday ho ya Monday… Roz khao ande!!’ says the tagline of National Egg Co-ordination Committee. Loosely translated it means ‘doesn’t matter what day of the week it is, have an egg every day!’ It was also made into a television commercial which became hugely popular in the 1990s in India. It is difficult to say how much that advertisement contributed to the demand, but egg production has been increasing steadily over the last 4 decades at around 6-8% every year. Not just eggs, the demand for chicken meat has also been increasing. This has transformed the once unorganized backyard poultry farming into a commercial production system. One of the major challenges facing the poultry industry is controlling disease outbreaks. The birds are routinely pumped with antibiotics and vaccines. However, vaccines do not always ensure that the diseases are kept at bay. One such disease that can affect the birds despite regular vaccination against it is the Newcastle disease. It is named after the populous city in North Eastern England where it was first identified. It is a fatal disease caused by a virus that goes by the same name, the Newcastle disease virus. This disease is reported from across the globe and is caused by 18 known variants, numbered from I to XVIII, of the Newcastle disease virus (NDV). Some variants are highly virulent, causing severe, often fatal infection and some cause mild symptoms.  Poultry Farm Five Newcastle disease outbreaks were reported from Nagpur region of central India between 2006 and 2012. Researchers from Nagpur Veterinary College and Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati carried out a study to investigate the outbreaks, examine the variant of Newcastle disease virus that was responsible for them and virulence (ability to cause severe infection) of the virus. The researchers collected tissue samples from brain, lungs, liver and other organs of chickens that had died in each of the outbreaks. Additionally, they took blood from both ailing and dead chickens.
In order to examine the virulence, the researchers injected the virus obtained from the samples collected into the brain of healthy one day old chicks. These chicks were observed for 8 days and they were given a score based on the severity of disease symptoms. Higher the score, higher is the virulence. The average time to death of the chicks was also used as an indicator of virulence. If the virus is highly virulent, it causes severe infection leading to death within a few days. Researchers found that the virus variant responsible for the disease outbreaks in Nagpur region was highly virulent. Furthermore, the researchers also identified the variant, among I to XVIII, of the virus that was responsible for the outbreaks. For this the researchers extracted the genetic material of the virus obtained from the samples collected. They compared the genetic data generated from the Nagpur samples with the known variants of NDV reported from around the world. Researchers identified the Nagpur variant as XIIIb. Why is knowing the variant important? Similarity or ‘match’ between the virus variant and the vaccine is one of the main factors that determines the effectiveness of a vaccine to prevent disease. By Jennie Miller, John Linnell, Vidya Athreya and Subharanjan Sen This article is an outcome of discussions at the Central Indian Landscape Symposium (CILS) in December 2016 during the session on Coexistence Between People and Wildlife. Wildlife managers and other conservation practitioners represent the wildlife they manage or research. When wildlife damages people’s property or affects the lives of family and friends, these authorities are often required to step beyond their areas of expertise and training to address the needs of people. Managing people well—especially in sensitive situations when they have faced a serious personal loss to wildlife—is critical to conserving wildlife. But how exactly do you explain to a stranger that her husband has been mauled by a sloth bear, or tell a farmer that a tiger has devoured his cow on which he relies for his sustenance? Local people’s interactions with the administration—often considered a representation of wildlife itself—start with the way in which people are treated as they receive the news of such losses. These moments can be traumatic and emotionally charged, especially when it is a human life that has been lost. The households wrestling with these losses are then often expected to carry out long protracted procedures to claim financial compensation payments, a process which again defines their view of the larger administrative and governmental system, as well as shapes their future willingness to engage with wildlife authorities and tolerate the proximity of wildlife. In such contexts, a conservation practitioner’s “people skills” play a critical, yet currently underappreciated, role. In that fraught moment, the individual who represents the authority is seen as a custodian of the wildlife species causing the loss (livestock, crop or human). They also take on another, greater role, that of a human being reacting to the loss of another human, one that requires empathy, humility, and respect. Some people possess these skills naturally and make for very effective wildlife managers with little need for further training. For others, these skills need to be taught and fostered by institutional culture. However, training in dealing with people in trauma and conflict has not been an important part of the curriculum for conservation biologists, practitioners, and wildlife managers. In this article, we build on our collective experiences as conservation professionals to discuss strategies related to public relations that could better equip researchers, forest administrations, and other conservation practitioners in caring for people as well as wildlife. Read the full article in the Economic and Political Weekly (free on ResearchGate).  |
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