pastoral communities

For How Long Will Van Gujjars Have To Seek Legal Remedies for Their Livelihood Practices?

At Govind Pashu Vihar National Park in Uttarkashi, the arbitrary actions of a single Forest Department officer has put the entire transhumant community at risk.

On May 25, 2021, the nomadic Van Gujjars finally relaxed. After a protracted struggle with the forest administration of the Govind Pashu Vihar National Park in Uttarkashi, the high court of Uttarakhand ordered the local administration as well as the deputy director of the national park to allow the pastoralists entry into the bugyals (meadows) within the protected area as they are entitled to do under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

The court recognised that the treatment meted out the Van Gujjars in the past month had forced them to survive without any basic human dignity. It set a deadline of June 15, 2021 to ensure the community has access to their summer homesteads and is provided with basic amenities for their survival as well as for the well-being of their livestock. While initial reports have seen positive enforcement of the order by the relevant authorities, the Van Gujjars continue to live in fear of the Forest Department, who have time and again, in contempt of court orders, issued eviction notices in the past without regard to their claim to reside within the forest.

But for how long will the Van Gujjars have to seek legal remedies for a routine livelihood practice like transhumance? Will the forest department continue to find their migratory practices unfavourable and deny them their basic right of existence within forests? Is the COVID-19 pandemic another excuse for the department to inhibit such practices and forcefully resettle the Van Gujjars from their nomadic ways? Can the conservation of wildlife continue to be cited to deny legitimate forest rights to these pastoralists?

In 2020, there was a complete ban on the annual migrations of the Van Gujjars due to the nationwide lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a loss of income propelled by the lack of availability of fodder and drinking water. So they had hoped that in 2021 they would not face challenges in accessing their summer homesteads. However, arbitrary actions taken by Komal Singh, the deputy director of the Govind Pashu Vihar National Park in the Purola division of Uttarkashi, has had them camping in tents at the edge of the forest for nearly two months now, prevented from entering the park for one unjustified reason or another.

People of the forests

The nomadic practices of the Van Gujjars see them traverse the Terai Bhabar and Siwalik regions of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh in the winter and climb to the higher reaches of the western Himalayas in the summer months in search of greener pastures and the plentiful water resources provided by recently melted snow.

The migration undertaken by the community is attuned to the lifestyle and need of the indigenous gojri breed of cattle they tend, which requires rotational grazing.

A female Gojri buffalo. Photo: icar.gov.in

However, although the Forest Rights Act, 2006, recognises the rights of pastoralists under section 3 to access common pastures and claim community forest resource rights, the implementation of the legislation has been dismal, with frequent barriers imposed by the Forest Department who contest the access claims of the Van Gujjars.

The discourse of forest conservation pursued by the Forest Department has sought to inhibit access to the Van Gujjars in protected areas of the forests, often citing them as a threat to wildlife despite ample proof of coexistence amongst the community, including the maintenance of water sources and fire lines within the forests, the equitable use of forest produce, no recognised poaching background due to a predominantly vegetarian diet and deep knowledge of the ecosystem that shows them where they can safely graze their cattle and which areas to avoid due to threats to wildlife.

Also read: Why India’s Forest Rights Act Is the Most Viable Forest Conservation Law

‘An animal existence’

The present issue concerns Komal Singh, the deputy director of Govind Pashu Vihar National Park in Uttarakashi, and the Van Gujjars who migrate to the bugyals within the protected area of the park.

When the Van Gujjars arrived at the outskirts of the park at Naitwad at the end of April 2021, they were denied access to their homes within the park because the deputy director failed to recognise the permits and permissions from the chief secretary of the chief minister’s office requesting the principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF, also known as the head of forest forces or HoFF) to grant the Van Gujjars permission to migrate.

As time passed, Singh continued to deny them entry even though he received letters from the PCCF as well as the chief wildlife warden to permit the Van Gujjars to enter the national park, not to mention numerous representations sent by the Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sanghathan.

Singh also cited COVID-19 protocols as a reason to prevent the Van Gujjars from entering the park, stating that they would be a health risk to the wildlife and thus showing that he thought of the community as below the dignity of animals. Rather than conducting COVID-19 tests at the earliest or deciding upon quarantining rules based on standard operating procedures, he usurped the authority of the district administration in complete violation of the right to life and basic dignity which the Van Gujjars required after a tedious transit.

Singh is not the nodal authority under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, but he arbitrarily denied access to the Van Gujjars without a deadline. In doing so, he directly contravened the Uttarakhand high court’s orders in the Think Act Rise Foundation case of 2019, which had granted an injunction upon the Forest Department to evict any forest dweller until a committee that the high court had ordered to be established decided upon the requisite rights of the Van Gujjars.

Uttarakhand high court. Credit: Navin Bhatt

Because of the actions of Komal Singh, the Van Gujjars continue to stay precariously in open tents. The last month witnessed severe rainfall and hail, which the community had no option but to cope with since they do not have access to their homes. The inability to sell milk in neighbouring towns and villages due to lockdown has led to another barrier in their livelihood. The rest stop where they are stationed lacks access to grass and fodder for the livestock, which has so far resulted in the starvation to death of ten buffaloes. Babies, young children and elderly people have been exposed to adverse health conditions. This situation was aptly described to the Uttarakhand high court on May 25 as one of mere animal existence, all due to the autocratic exercise of power by certain officials.

A malafide act?

Komal Singh appears to have a history of prejudice against the Van Gujjars of Uttarakhand. In 2017, as the chief wildlife warden of Rajaji National Park, he had wrongfully, without adhering to Section 61-A of the Uttarakhand Forest Act, issued notices for the eviction of the Van Gujjars across the three ranges where they resided – the Gohri, Chillawali and Asarori ranges across the Pauri Garhwal, Haridwar and Dehradun districts, respectively.

By categorising the Van Gujjars as encroachers and using violence and intimidation, Singh managed to evict around 200 Van Gujjars from these ranges. However, certain members of the communities from the Gohri and Asarori ranges somehow managed to resist the eviction and stayed put.

Thereafter, as deputy director of Govind Pashu Vihar National Park, Singh was made a member of a committee for the rehabilitation of Van Gujjars, which he delayed for two years, denying benefits to those he had evicted by referring to them as illegal encroachers. Some of the evicted members of the community are still eking out their existence on rented land or on the banks of the river Ganga in Haridwar.

Singh’s actions as the chief wildlife warden of the Rajaji National Park are now pending enquiry. They were questioned as malafide in the 2019 Think Act Rise case in the Uttarakhand high court, which ordered the establishment of a committee with the chief secretary of the Social Welfare Department, Uttarakhand, as the chair and people from the Forest Department and civil society as other members, to ensure the rights of the Van Gujjars under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

Right to human dignity

The Think Rise Act Foundation is a student-led, self-funded NGO founded in 2018 by Arjun Kasana, a graduate of the University of Delhi, to pursue justice through legal and extra-legal means for the Van Gujjars.

In 2019, the foundation challenged the evictions of the Van Gujjars from various areas of Rajaji National park, which had been carried out through illegal notices under Section 61-A of the Uttarakhand Forest Act. The foundation also pleaded for the recognition of the legal rights of the Van Gujjars.

When Komal Singh denied the Van Gujjars entry into Govind Pashu Vihar National Park this year, the community contacted the foundation on May 17, 2021. The foundation thereafter filed a supplementary affidavit and mentioned the issue on the ongoing PIL No. 140 of 2019 before the high court, highlighting the plea of the Van Gujjars and their deplorable condition in makeshift tents.

Why Bringing Cheetahs Back Is India’s Best Bet to Protect Its Threatened Drylands

A commons area could serve as crucial habitat for threatened wildlife like the cheetah and also protect the livelihoods of marginal pastoral communities.

In 2013, the Supreme Court called the African cheetah a “foreign species” and rejected a plan to introduce it in India. Early this week, however, the Supreme Court green-lit the forest department’s plan to introduce African cheetahs from Namibia in northwest India as an experiment. For the first time since 1948, India will be home to all of the big cat species in the Old World: tigers, lions, leopards, snow leopards and – now – cheetahs.

The Asiatic cheetah has a long history in the subcontinent (‘cheetah’ is derived from the Sanskrit chitraka, ‘spotted’) but the story of its decline here is also an old one. Asiatic cheetahs are remarkably easy to tame, which meant kings across the country collected thousands of them from the wild to use them to hunt antelope. But because these cheetahs didn’t breed well in captivity, their population began to plummet. Another animal has an even older history of capture from the wild – massive elephants from central and west India, likely resulting in their local extinction in these regions. However, there are still around 27,000 elephants in India today while the cheetah has been missing for decades.

The cheetahs vanished because, among other reasons, of their habitat. Elephants do best in dense deciduous forests while cheetahs are at home in grasslands and scrubby hills. Today, most elephant habitats are confined to undulating very dry and very wet areas. The cheetah may have disappeared 70 years ago but other charismatic open-country species like the Indian wolf, striped hyena and the great Indian bustard disappeared rapidly. Indeed, they’re locally extinct from most of their former range, and now persist in small isolated populations, and not necessarily within habitat set aside for their protection.

There are many reasons for population decline in open habitats but all of them stem from one cause: neglect. Such neglect began under British rule, who saw open habitats as formerly closed canopy forests degraded by human abuse of the land. So they responded by attempting to right a perceived wrong, banning grazing, preventing controlled fires and promoting afforestation. But even after the cheetah was last seen only until the 1950s, the neglect continued. The Government of India has brought large tracts of open habitat under irrigation, planted alien species like Prosopis juliflora (which has since gone rogue) in greening programmes, incentivised the cultivation of eucalyptus plantations for the paper-pulp industry, and preferentially converted open habitats close to cities and ports for industrial use.

Today, the open habitats of India are critically endangered.

A glass half-full

These somber details clearly underline the perils of cheetah reintroduction in a country where little or no habitat exists. Indeed, this is the principal reason why some conservationists are opposed to the cheetah reintroduction programme. But like every problem, there are big opportunities as well.

In 1973, India did the impossible by creating dozens of tiger reserves; over two decades later, tiger numbers more than doubled. This success story was driven by the simple logic that protecting good tiger habitats from human activity will allow tiger numbers to bounce back – and bounce back it did. There’s no reason a similar will within the Indian forest department and conservation community shouldn’t script a success story with the cheetah.

Also read: Cheetahs Return to Malawi After Decades

However, grasslands are not forests. Stopping uncontrolled forest fires and reducing grazing can make forests denser and better habitat for wildlife but these measures will degrade grasslands by rendering them less conducive to open-country species. India needs a conservation policy that retains short grass, prevents excessive tree cover and ensures controlled fires in the winter. Forests do best without human intervention while grasslands do best when intervention is stabilised. The idea is that if we can train our collective intuition to understand this difference, we should be able to manoeuvre the conservation infrastructure to protect open habitats.

Some conservationists are cautiously optimistic. “Given the huge range of issues concerning the conservation of savannah grassland habitats in India, this is a golden opportunity to highlight their precarious condition,” Abi Tamim Vanak, a savannah ecologist with the Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment, Bengaluru, said.

Stabilised intervention in grasslands

A male Asiatic cheetah in Iran. Photo: Erfan Kouchari/Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0

History is full of instances where forests have been neglected at the cost of local people, and some of the world’s most successful conservation stories are built on this legacy. However, cheetah habitat can be protected without such injustice because India’s grasslands are unique. African savannahs cover huge swathes of land with abundant wild grazers and low human density. In such cases, fortress conservation – which excludes local pastoralists – can yield positive outcomes for wildlife but only at the cost of local people. Indian open habitats are different: wild herbivores like chinkara, blackbuck and nilgai are found at much lower densities, their habitats are smaller and patchy, interspersed with farms and settlements, and both human and livestock densities are higher.

Excluding people from grasslands in India will be disastrous. Even if we do increase wild herbivore density to African levels, we cannot control spillover crop-loss as these herbivores move into farmland, especially when natural food is scarce. The solution lies with legitimising the grazing commons, and allowing grassland species to use these habitats together with cattle and pastoralists.

“As part of our national savannah grassland mapping exercise, we have identified beautiful intact grasslands spread of hundreds of square kilometres in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh,” Vanak said. “However, these areas are all either privately owned or are village commons, and are under great threat from various projects, including the Green India Mission, solar power [projects], industry, agriculture, etc.”

The legitimate commons could serve as crucial habitat for threatened wildlife like the cheetah and also protect the livelihoods of marginal pastoral communities.

The devil in the details

Between introducing cheetahs on an experimental basis to having them roam the countryside, there is much to be done. This cycles back to our vision: Do we want to see cheetahs in one or two locations or do we want breeding populations and their prey across the country, wherever habitat can be consolidated?

Vanak argued that a long-term vision is not apparent in the current plan: “it seems to me, based on what I’ve read, that this reintroduction is also going to be very focused on protected areas, and therefore will not address the bigger problem of grassland loss.”

Some reports cite three potential locations for reintroduction: Velavadar in Gujarat, Tal Chapar in Rajasthan – both grasslands – and Kuno-Palpur in Madhya Pradesh, a scrub habitat.

Also read: ‘Beloved but Ignored’ Is a Limited View of How Charismatic Species Survive

A larger vision might be more helpful. “If the government, working with conservationists, can think of an innovative model where traditional pastoralists as well as grassland fauna such as blackbuck, chinkara, wolves, etc. could be protected in such landscapes – keeping in mind that this is where cheetahs should ultimately roam – we can think of some real conservation success stories,” Vanak said. He recalled another iconic grassland species, the Great Indian bustard, which is in danger of becoming extinct. A habitat-focused plan to reintroduce cheetahs could help protect the habitats of this threatened bird as well.

Then again, even if we figure out the habitat question, another one remains. Will African cheetah behave like the Asiatic cheetah that once was? Both the African and Asiatic cheetahs are subspecies that stopped breeding with each other some 30,000-70,000 years ago. This concern, of introducing a ‘foreign’ species, is what delayed this plan for decades. India unsuccessfully lobbied Iran in 2003, if not later, to part with its Asiatic cheetahs that, at 50 individuals or less, are very close to extinction.

Even if the African subspecies is very distinct, the big question is going to be its ecology. We don’t know if the African subspecies will be able to adapt to Indian conditions. If it faces familiar challenges with finding prey, dealing with predators, and climate and habitat, it will not have a tough time settling down. But without any baseline information, especially from Asiatic cheetahs in India, there is no way to know until we try.

Doing it right

How we reintroduce the cats will be key. India will need to maintain strict protocols to reduce the risk of human injury, livestock predation and stress, and improve identification of prey and non-prey species. Unfortunately, our track record with big cat introduction is far from impressive. Last month, the National Tiger Conservation Authority had to cancel a reintroduction programme in Odisha because the tiger in question was kept for a year in a small cage. In Sariska, where tigers had been reintroduced after they were wiped out in 2006, they continue to die or not reproduce.

Perhaps more importantly, following protocol is not enough. We also need to identify the right habitats. “The cheetah population may not establish,” Vanak exclaimed. “Or competition with tigers and leopards may [cause] the cheetahs [to move] out of the protected area, triggering conflict. … It is important to keep all these things in mind before choosing the reintroduction site.”

Also read: Review: ‘The Last White Hunter’ Is a Celebration of Lost Tales From the Wild

But there is hope as well as precedent. We have successfully reintroduced less charismatic species like the pygmy hog in Assam, gaur in Bandhavgarh and vultures from breeding centres across India. When bad journalism and political attention is not at play, officials do follow due process. And given what is at stake, scientists in charge of the project should implement Project Cheetah with a long-term vision to conserve the cheetah as much as the country’s grasslands and pastoral livelihoods.

Akshay Surendra is an ecologist and wildlife biologist studying tropical forests in the Andaman Islands.

In Photos: Tracking Gujarat’s Worst Drought in Over Thirty Years

The government claims that enough is being done to deal with the situation. But life, in this hostile terrain remains precarious.

Away from media attention, Gujarat is enduring one the worst droughts in recent history. The state, as a whole, received only 76% of its average rainfall during the south-west monsoon of 2018. Some regions have fared much worse.

The Wire travelled over a thousand kilometres through Kutch and North Gujarat, the two worst affected regions, and spoke to pastoralists, farmers and families struggling for fodder and water. This is the third in a series of articles about the drought. You can read the full series here.

Kutch/Banaskantha: In Kutch and in north Gujarat, it is often said that a drought every three or four years is normal. The two arid regions have devised ways to live with it.

But the situation this year is exceptional. By the admission of the state, the current drought is the worst in over thirty years.

Utensils to store water kept next to a water pipe in Bekhra, a remote village in the most sparsely populated taluka of Kutch – Lakhpat. The village hadn’t received water in its pipelines for 10 days. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

An empty dam near Khavda, 80 kilometres north of Bhuj. Of the 23 dams in Kutch, only three have water stored in them. The administration, though, is certain that they have enough to meet the needs of the district till July. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

Parts of Kutch received only 12 millimetres of rainfall during the monsoon. To put this into perspective, Punjab received more unseasonal rain in April this year.

The Banni region is comprised mostly of Maldharis, a semi-nomadic pastoral community, that depends almost entirely on cattle for its livelihood. Due to the rainfall deficit, their cattle have suffered a shortage of fodder (as there is very little natural grass available) and water. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

More than 400 cattle camps, where fodder is provided to cattle, have been set up across the district by NGOs, with the support of the government. A subsidy of Rs 35 per cattle per day up to a maximum of 40 cattle per household is provided. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

As a result of the drought, there is little natural grass available for cattle to feed on. This has impacted the economy in these regions, as most of the population is dependent on their cattle for livelihood. Several thousands have migrated to other parts of Gujarat.

The water stored in three reservoirs is provided through water pipelines. Tankers ply to settlements where there are no pipelines. But, residents complaint that the supply through both pipelines and tankers is erratic and inadequate. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

Several thousands have migrated from Kutch due to the drought. As water availability declined, those who could afford to, migrated to the eastern parts of Kutch or even as far as the Ahmedabad district. The administration, however, does not know exactly how many have migrated. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

In Nanasarada, a hamlet of around 1,500 in the Banni region north of Bhuj, only a few families remain. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

Water supply to the villages has also been impacted with residents having to wait several days before they are supplied water through pipelines or tankers where there are no pipelines.

The virdas are a traditional system of water harvesting used in Kutch for centuries. A natural depression, jheel, is identified and multiple shallow wells, virdas, are dug for rain water run off to collect. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

Women carry water to their home from virdas. In Kutch, like in most of rural India, it is primarily the job of women to fetch water. As the season progresses and water level declines in the virdas, the water turns progressively brackish. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

After a ten-day wait, Bekhra finally gets water in its pipelines. The wait was made even more excruciating when the pipeline developed a snag when water was released from the pumping station. Fortunately, it was fixed in time before supply was cut off. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

The government claims that enough is being done to deal with the situation. But life, in the hostile terrain with an unforgiving climate, remains precarious.

A parched field in north Gujarta’s Banaskhantha district. The district has received only 33% of its 30 year average rainfall. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

A mustard field in Kutch’s Nakhatrana region. Most of the crop has been destroyed due to the paucity of rainfall. Credit: Kabir Agarwal

The Government Can’t Help the Northeast Without Also Helping the Snow Leopard

The Himalayan region is home to numerous endemic species that are endangered, not least because of climate change. And here the circle comes full.

In October last year, a camera trap photographed a snow leopard in Thembang, a village in western Arunachal Pradesh. The camera trap was part of a statewide survey by the World Wide Fund for Nature, a.k.a. WWF, India. It provided the first photographic evidence of the presence of snow leopards in the state. In turn, this spotlighted the survey’s importance. Without it, we’d have continued to go with anecdotal evidence.

This is surprising. Arunachal Pradesh overlaps a part of the Eastern Himalayan region, with a lot of land over 3,000 m above sea level. This makes it a natural home for the snow leopard. Photographic proof shouldn’t have taken so long.

“Arunachal has long been recognised as a potential snow leopard habitat, especially the alpine areas above about 4,000 m,” Yash Veer Bhatnagar, director of the Snow Leopard Trust’s India programme and a senior scientist at the National Conservation Foundation, told The Wire. “However, apart from Tawang, there have been no confirmed reports from other parts. I believe even the early British explorers and surveyors didn’t report” seeing any snow leopards.

Also read: In Search Of Snow Leopards, The Elusive ‘Ghost Of The Mountains’

In India, snow leopards are distributed in the higher areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. In Asia, this species is found mostly in the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. They are severely threatened, classified as ‘vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List.

“Arunachal Pradesh defines the easternmost distribution of snow leopards in India and is globally important for the conservation” of the species, according to Rishi Kumar Sharma, senior coordinator at WWF India. “But there have been no systematic studies to examine the status of snow leopards, their wild ungulate prey species and the nature and extent of threats that they face.”

Sharma and his colleagues have been working in the Eastern Himalayan region as part of the first phase of their conservation programme. They completed a statewide survey of Arunachal last year and are currently analysing the data.

For one, they’ve found that snow leopard populations are threatened when wild ungulates they eat are trapped by humans, when they fall into traps humans have set for their prey, and by free-ranging dogs.

Large linear infrastructure projects have also intruded in what used to be an undisturbed habitat in remote parts of Arunachal.

On December 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Bogibeel Bridge, the country’s longest railroad, between Assam and Arunachal. Many other transportation and eco-tourism projects are in the pipeline.

Of course India’s Northeast is strategically important, and its relatively poorer infrastructure merits the promotion of such projects. However, as Bhatnagar said, the Government of India doesn’t seem to be registering the resulting ecological impact. It should be.

The WWF survey assumes additional importance in this context. “While developing infrastructure projects, we usually have access to topographic maps and taluk-level administrative information. But there’s no [detailed] information about the presence of key wildlife species in the region.”

Also read: Dogs Are Turning Hunters, Wreaking Havoc On India’s Livestock, Wildlife

The survey fills this gap and allows state officials to plan projects without disturbing biodiversity hotspots. At least, it is one less excuse.

Better access could mean better connectivity for enforcement officers as well. “When I visited the state last year,” Bhatnagar said, “I found that many forest officers couldn’t visit” many parts of protected areas “due to poor road networks.”

And if protected areas are not well-collected, it’s alarming that over 90% of snow leopard habitat in the whole country falls outside such areas, where connectivity is likely to be poorer.

Community-conserved areas like Thembang make up most of this 90%. Here, conservation depends a lot on forest officials, the local panchayat and the people of the region working together.

The trans-Himalayan region illustrates how.

“Unlike other terrestrial ecosystems in India, the trans-Himalaya is unique because wildlife occurs throughout” this region, “and isn’t restricted to protected areas,” Sharma said. So the snow leopards here can’t get by on the exalted legal status of protected areas alone.

Everyone needs to work with the local communities, the stewards of the region, to ensure the snow leopard won’t be harmed wherever it chooses to go. Sharma explained that the knowledge these communities – “especially the livestock herders” – should be included in any survey of the area. Community members are consulted on new conservation plans and interventions.

Many of these communities also consider the hunting and killing of big cats to be taboo.

But it can’t be an exercise in taking alone. There also needs to be a lot of giving.

These are “unique ecosystems that support nomadic and agro-pastoral communities while also nurturing unique high-altitude wildlife,” according to Sharma. Such proximity leads to conflict. For example, snow leopards have been known to kill livestock, leaving its owners facing lost revenue given the demand for products like wool.

Also read: Meet the Villagers Who Protect Biodiversity on the Top of the World

In response, the WWF is working with local communities so they can benefit from conservation programmes as much as the snow leopards will.

It is helping install predator-proof livestock pens and introduce wildlife-friendly livestock production techniques like rotational grazing. Zero-waste initiatives have been mooted to reduce habitat degradation. The people no longer kill the animals in retaliation.

The areas without human presence are equally important. The Himalayan region is home to numerous endemic species that are endangered, not least because of climate change. And here the circle comes full.

Around the world, “over 330 million people live within 10 km of rivers originating in snow leopard habitat, and are directly affected by the water flowing down from these mountains,” Sharma said. Forested mountain slopes form catchment areas and also channel the flow of water to foothills and lowland plains.

So it’s in everyone’s best interest to conserve these landscapes and the plants and animals that live there.

Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bengaluru.