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“NO COUNTRY FOR GREAT INDIAN BUSTARD” !

“A Critically Endangered Bird That Alarms Catastrophe, Left Unnoticed” “Story of sorry state of affairs of Great Indian Grassland Ecosystem”

This is a heartbreaking chronicle of a bird, an ecosystem, every attempt to killing of which brought upheaval, calamity and cataclysm in Indian subcontinent. Any thought of obliteration of shelter of which brought misfortune of deprivations and widespread devastation, any act of annihilation of habitat of which brought tragedy of death and destruction leading to one of the catastrophic disastrous situation which India is facing now every moment in terms of drought, calamity, famines, famines, floods, poverty, destitution, farmers suicides, monsoon failures and climate change. We are are already running out of time. There are still few fibers of hope. There is still time to act, and the time to act is just now, before it becomes too late … A K Singh

She loves margins of forests. Edges of landscapes of sand dunes in Jaisalmer and Barmer in Rajasthan are darling wonderlands she admires most. Most of her friends have left her in lurch. As a flagship icon she captures the imagination of world at large, she fascinates the ingenuity, creativity and skill of the people those who regard her. Charismatic in outfit, charmingly captivating, symbol of attraction, she is destined to be the ambassador of not only resurgent Rajasthan but also rising India as well. More we know about Great Indian Bustard, the more we understand about how to respect our living environment, to give regard to our surroundings and protect it. Great Indian Bustard, has of late stopped singing her song in our neighborhood in whole of India. Bustards had been constantly ringing alarm call, on a wide and extensive landscape of Indian subcontinent since almost more than two centuries, which in India has been left, ignored for too long. Her chronicle of life is nothing but a sad poignant story of a brutal murder of a giant-beautiful-fowl which has all the reason to trigger death and destruction not far in the near future. A dazzling and splendid big-feather-ill-fated-bird, which ought to have been most befittingly called a “NATIONAL BIRD OF INDIA”. The bird, destruction of which had been an instinctive cause in driving famines, death and destruction of humanity during British Raj. She was widespread in almost whole of India in more than 1000 in numbers a few decades back. She is now only 125 in numbers as of today in 2013. Indian Maharajas, European Kings and mediaeval thugs started exterminating across-the-board beautiful habitat of this bird with a deadly passion of hunting, poaching and widespread shooting. Owing to viciously-exploitative “colonial-policy-of-land-tenures” of Britsh Raj, open-grassland-home-range of this largest-flying-creature-in-India started getting diminished forever. Hunting Viceroys like Lord Linlithgow 1943, Lord Archibald Wavel, Lord Curzon 1905, Lord Reading, Shahs of Iran, King of Nepal, King of Afghanistan, King of Malaya, Prince of Germany,

Prince of Wales, who visited India at the turn of the last century, on a historical shooting spree, destroyed plenty

of these and other birds, which in chain reaction, swept across its wide ranging shelter of grassland ecosystem found in the vicinity of all the forests of whole of India. A bird which, howls like a tiger, a big fowl which sprints like a camel, a

beautiful bird, famous for its elegant courtship-ballet-dance with a sound of mellifluous-resonance, the fashionable hunting of which brought not only famines, natural-resource-scarcity, deprivation, but also food insecurity, death and starvation across the whole Indian subcontinent. The last ray of hope still persists to help

flourish this critically endangered ecosystem. Great Indian Bustard is not a bird only. She is the last remnant of unique bio-diversity where she lost one of her old friend called Indian Cheetah. She is the replica of aesthetic beauty and cultural heritage of last frontier natural good old grasslands where she lived with her other friends like chinkara, black bucks, desert fox, indian fox, desert cats, jackals, wolves, hare, hedge hogs,

pangolins, peacocks, spiny tailed lizards and of course leopards. She is the flagship species, and holds the right to protect not only one of the ultimate and beautiful grasslands of India but also she is capable of bringing lost glory of resurgent India once again by reviving one of the fading ecosystems which India is renowned in the world as a destination. A lost hunting paradise of Cheetah, Tiger, Lion, Leopard, Bustards, Floricans, hawks and

  2  falcons. She is now only restricted to Desert National Park sprawling in Jaisalmer and Barmer, Rollapadu in AP etc where she finds solace in the company of her 200 variety of birds and their prey like eagles, buzzards, falcons, kestrels, vultures, one of the splendidly outstanding and remarkably fascinating ecosystems of India. Great Indian Bustards is a pathetic story of ruthless exploitation of India and her grassland ecosystems. Under British regime, pastoral meadows and uncultivated common natural lands were considered “uneconomic-wastelands” that were granted, owned, taxed and brought under the agricultural cultivation. After independence, the focus on agricultural productivity and land reforms caused a further acquisition of pastoral-common lands. Out of 15% of the total geographical area of India, 23% is community pasture and grazing lands and 16% remains to be village forests, deemed forests and thickly wooded areas left for maintaining these as grassland ecosystems in juxtaposition to each other. For example in rural Punjab people set about acquiring 20 Lakh acres of common-grazing-lands, expropriating pastoralists, setting up agricultural colonies, constructing canals and granting blocks of lands to peasants. Arid-pastoral lands became the spools of poverty, ignorance and oppression. Commercial agricultural cropping of notorious cotton extended into the village commons displaced the cattle, huge livestock and pastoral communities in Hyderabad-Berar state leading to vicious spell of drought, famine, crop failures, compelling the farmers to committing suicide with alarming regularity. India inherited the British System of Administration, British Legal System and British System of Land Tenures as a result of which country faced series of terrible famines and enormous shortage of fodder and firewood till today. Large agricultural land holdings were forcibly divided, parceled out and distributed to landless communities which was the habitat of the Great Indian Bustard. Under mounting pressures of Dalit movements small portions of land unfit for cultivation were granted to them most of whom never practiced agriculture. Collective struggle and personal tussle to be able to own land by these communities turned into a never ending battle to keep small parcels of land alive and under the same crop cultivation for decades together. Never ending litigations piled in the court of law. Very soon the division of land ended up dividing communities leading to income disparities and

widespread discontent. Many villages had lost their common grazing lands to private ownership, who were finally pushed out of their village-grazing-lands, migrating from one village to other towns and even to far flung cities of other states in search of fodder, fuel and sustenance. Private ownership alienated such lands for commercial use of civil and other business constructions. Government’s desire to “grow-more-food” rendered “agro-pastoral-commons” and grazing grounds to crop cultivation. New irrigation-schemes and Green

Revolution led to phenomenal increase in bumper crop production. Green Revolution prompted more and more lands to be acquired for agriculture and milk production from which emerged out a White Revolution. Drought Prone Area Programs DPAPs were launched for more and more soil and water conservation which culminated into enthusiastic Water Shed Development Programs. This imposed ban on livestock grazing and enforced prohibition of cutting, lopping and topping of fodder and

firewood and these were the last frontier habitats of Great Indian Bustards, lost shelters of Indian Cheetah, beautiful floricans and thousands of black bucks, chinkara and marvelously fabulous last resorts of millions of birds and falcons, a unique ecosystem. Outcome ! Those communities that were landless and depended on village commons migrated out of these watershed areas. It was expected that fodder would be regularly lopped, cut and given for stall feeding to dairy livestock. Till it could happen, communities migrated leaving the “ungrazed-grasslands” abandoned, catching fire when summer winds dried them. The desire was not so much to provide the people around with an available natural resources, rather to keep them out, who depended on the common lands. Fast growing and high yielding species, for some value of fodder and firewood were planted massively over vast tracts of such lands. Eucalyptus was a favorite species which largely benefited the paper and pulp industries was afforested on mass commercial scale which seemed to have altered the habitat use of these birds all over India. Fear of rapid desertification propelled the forest department and other agencies to plant Prosopis-juliflora, Acacia tortlis, Tecomela in Rajasthan and exotic Accia auriculiformis, Cassia siamia, Glyricidia in Karnataka for improvement

  3  of degraded areas, on a considerable vast tracts of lands which altered and changed the basic-landscape-configuration and natural fabric of such agro-pastoral-lands wherein this ecosystem had to be further nourished and improved for facilitating favorable habitat of these birds. Last frontier old growth natural shrubaceous forests of Bellary, Davanagere, Mysore, Chitradurga, Raichur, Gulbarga and Bidar with upcoming crop of Glyricidia, Acacia, Casia siamia, Hardwickia in this magnificent grassland ecosytems of black bucks, chinkara, floricans and Great Indian Bustards became the harvesting grounds of firewood pools of the nearby village communities. Black bucks, chinkara, Bustards, Floricans and falcons lost their shelter. Bewildered and confused they started migrating to more safer places and their populations got disoriented, lost and vanished in the ferocious hinterlands of India. During the last two centuries major portion of live forested ecosystems adjoining to the villages, contiguous to the agricultural lands, in the vicinity of forests which used to be the wonderful pristine “ecological-bio-diversified-network” to the tune of 85 million of hectares is reported to have been granted as record-of-rights met with “tragedy of commons” resulting in the depletion of shared local natural resources which proved contrary to the long term best interests of the local folks which ultimately meshed economic growth and long term sustainable development. Livelihood-insecurity and food-uncertainty haunted the nomadic seasonal cattle graziers to wander long distances hither and thither. Forest Rights Act 2006 granted legal recognition to millions of forest dwelling communities over these earlier abandoned millions of hectares of agro-pastoral-forested-tracts which started mounting unprecedented pressure over the territory of Great Indian Bustard. Now, with the advent of climate change, mitigation and adaptation programs, such-“non-cultivated-wastes” have been taken for Clean Development Projects CDM or REDD+ to convert these into economically productive agricultural lands, plantations or afforestation which could serve as “carbon-sinks” for community empowermnet. Bio-Fuel, bio-diesel, wind energy and solar power projects will further have an overriding impact on such gorgeously beautiful landscapes. Due to myopic-land-distribution and the ambiguity arising from segregated ownership between private, community and government bodies, encroachment ensued in many bustard areas, especially in and around bustard sanctuaries of Maharashtra, Kachchh and other habitats. Activities such as mining, stone quarrying, growth of industries and power projects along with the expansion of roads, electric

poles, wind turbines and other infrastructures have increased the ruthless destruction of habitat and inflicted disturbance beyond expectation .Traditionally, grasslands and scrub have been considered as wasteland and the Forest Department, until recently, has been converting beautiful pastures into forests with plantations of fuel/fodder shrub/tree, even exotics like Prosopis, Gliricidia and Eucalyptus spp, under social forestry and compensatory afforestation schemes in view of the Forest Conservation Act 1988, resulting in further loss of the habitat. However, the current threats

were mostly from habitat loss and degradation, caused by widespread agricultural expansion and mechanization of farming, infrastructural development such as irrigation, roads,

electric poles, wind turbines, civil-constructions, mining and industrialization, well intended but ill-informed habitat management. With increased availability of water due to encouraging irrigation schemes,

agriculture has spread over vast arid–semiarid grasslands.. Though some protected areas have been specifically established for flourishing this ecosystem. Desert National Park in Barmer & Jaisalmer, Sonkhaliya-Sarson in Rajasthan, Lala-Naliya Gaga-Bhatiya in in Kuch Gujarat, Karera, Ghatigoan, Nanaj near Glwalior in Madhya Pradesh, Ranibennur near Dharwad in Karnataka. Very good populations occur in Desert National Park in Rajasthan and Rollapadu in Andhra Pradesh. Bustards seem to have abandoned Karera, Gaga-Bhatiya and Ranibennur probably due to habitat alterations. Revival of grasslands, maintenance of arid and semi-arid-grasslands, used as agro-pastoral-landscape, with scattered short scrub, bushes and low intensity cultivation, in flat and gently undulating terrain, will definitely improve foraging and lekking sites. Birds congregate in “less-disturbed-traditional-grassland-patches” to breed during mid-summer and post-monsoon for nesting in open grounds for laying one or at the most two eggs per year. Thereafter it resorts to local and “long-distance-nomadic-migration” in response to better availability of fruits, berries, in response to obtainability of insects, catterpilars and grains surrounded by protected natural grass-scrub habitat of Aristida, Chrysopogans, Sehima, Dicanthium, tree like Morinda, Phoenux, Zizhyphus, Carissa etc. for nutrition and free navigation. It requires different assortment of favorable micro-habitat of grasslands with relatively tall vegetation on slightly elevated undulations of ungrazed-fields with sparse vegetation, with minimal scrubs for roosting and moderate vegetation for shade and resting.

  4   To enhance the population of Great Indian Bustard and to restore such a vast grassland ecosystem which prosper under slightly better diversified flora and fauna like plenty of stocks of grasshoppers, beetles, buprestis, scarbei caterpillars, & lizards. We need to make efforts for ecological restoration of maximum possible extent of undisturbed arid grasslands, to check degradation and reduce the disturbance in existing “grassland-agro-pastoral-landscape”. We need to forge natural grassland restoration, legal framework for “grassland –preservation” juxtaposed to the forests, sanctuaries and national parks. We need to protect and conserve many lekking sites and nesting spots. There is a need to coordinate different wings of government departments including support of various stakeholders. We need to prevent livestock overgrazing and feral dogs. State Governments must secure and fully protect all ‘lekking’ sites. This may be the single most important step in saving the species. A lekking site is a traditional place where males gather to display and attract females. If these sites are subjected to disturbance or degradation, Great Indian Birds may not be able to breed, even if large areas of potential habitat are protected, but specific lekking sites are not, then Bustards numbers will continue to slash down. Since there are multiple threats to these sites, such as industrial development, agriculture, irrigation and highways. This needs political will and cooperation by multiple government departments and local communities with a handpicked membership that includes dynamic and committed government officials from different departments, biologists, conservationists, and local community leaders. State Governments must constitute a “Bustard-Task-Force” in every Great Indian Bustard State including Karnataka, where it has been recently sighted and struggling hard to settle down amid wide and extensive agro-pasture lands of Bellary, Dharwad and Belgaum, A full-scale ‘Project Bustard’ based on a sound scientific plan need to be developed in consultation with national and international experts, as well as key people from each Great Indian Bustard State need to be launched all over India. There is a need to examine the feasibility of captive breeding by constituting a core group of experts that includes international experts with experience in breeding bustards or similar endangered birds in captivity. The recovery of the California condor, a large-sized, slow breeding bird that was on the verge of extinction,

was a result of captive breeding. From 22 birds left in the wild, their numbers have increased to 405, with 226 living in the wild. England is celebrating the hatching of four chicks of Bustard which was hunted down to extinction in the UK in 1832, but re introduced it again in Salisbury Plains in Wiltshire six years ago. This is the second year in which birds have been reared and bred successfully in the wild. 104 birds have been reared in Russia before being flown to the UK and released into wild. Last year, at least three chicks were born in the wild and this year at least four more have been spotted. This is a tragic tale of an exclusive but brutally-trampled-ecosystem running millions of miles which used to flourish centuries back. Royal game hobby of hawking, bird stalking, sports-hunting of big birds, wolves, jackals and foxes during the last three centuries which wiped out one of the most strikingly dazzling grassland-ecosystem of India. This write us is published for the cause of conservation and safeguarding the interest of one of the most critically endangered species and ecosystem, to tell us the fact that there are still few fibers of hope and that there is still time to act, and the time to act is just now, before it is too late. View film.

A K Singh is the member of Indian Forest Service 1997 serving in the Ministry of Forest, Ecology and Environment, Government of Karnataka. . Contact 9481180956 and

aksinghifs@gmail.com, 05.11.2015.

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