A farewell to wildlife

By Manohar Malgonkar

NOT so long ago I wrote two articles in this column describing how the surviving rain forest of north-west Karnataka, where it borders Goa, is being relentlessly destroyed and that the wild animals which had lived in it have been forced to abandon what purported to be a "sanctuary" for them, in a futile quest for a less hostile environment.

It was clear that drastic measures were needed to save both the rain forest and its animal life. So is anything being done?

Predictably enough, nothing.On the contrary the process of finishing off both the wilderness and its denizens seems to have reached a point of no return. The last nail in the coffin is about to be banged in.

But what am I talking about? Let the Karnataka Government itself describe it. I have before me a glossy green folder put out by its Tourism Department which speaks of it in almost lyrical terms.

The folder is titled ‘The call of the wild; the Kali River Camp Dandeli’. Under this caption is a colour photograph of a fine tiger, suggesting that tigers still roam in these jungles. The inside spread too is splashed with photographs of idyllic jungle scenes and interspersed with messages promising heady pleasures, such as: " a tete-a-tete with enchanting wild life", super food of "lip-smacking" quality and the warning that, while you’re at the table, "don’t be surprised if a deer or two with their other friends join you."

To be sure, Dandeli was all this and more till the 60s, but today almost none of this is true. Dandeli itself is a dreary industrial slum; there is no reason why a nature-lover should want to visit the place. For instance the pamphlet speaks of a ride in a coracle on the Kali river as being a sort of magic experience. But in the town of Dandeli itself, there are three riverside factories, spewing their chemical wastes into the Kali river, to say nothing of their smoke and smells into the sky overhead. Beyond Dandeli there can be no riverside wildlife whatsoever because the water of the river is not fit for man or beast.

And that bit about a deer or two coming to share your dinner is a wild flight of fancy. I don’t believe that any deer or other wild creature has strayed near Dandeli for the past 20 years.

"The best time to visit Dandeli", the government pamphlet tells us, "is between October-June". Which may well be true but not, alas, for someone who wants to respond to that "call of the wild" thrown out by the pamphlet. Because there is nothing "wild" whatsoever in today’s Dandeli, which might be associated with nature.

As Dandeli began to develop into a runaway factory town, such wild creatures as lived in its environment fled to the outer reaches of the sanctuary and indeed spilled over outside, its designated boundaries. From villages like Nagargali and Assu which are at least 15-km from Dandeli there are frequent reports of a leopard taking away dogs or of elephants raiding crops.

Those elephants invading rice-fields, that leopard on the prowl; are they not themselves evidence to show that there are still some wild animals left in this area?

Of course they are; it is just that their number has alarmingly diminished, and they have had to flee the area of the sanctuary. Their natural habitats has been reduced to less than half of its original size and, what is even more to the point, their sources of drinking water, too.

In the past, the abundance of the Kali river and the dozens of its tributaries was their God-given heritage. Now, only about a 10-km stretch of Kali upriver from Dandeli is still unpolluted, as is the great lake that has been created by putting a dam across the Kali at Supa.

The Supa lake, whether it has been a boon or a disaster, is now a fact of geography, to be lived with. Damage that its building caused to the environment is now history. It is something to be thankful for that the enormous expanse of water, fanning in and out of vivid green mountains, is entirely pollution free. It is now the principal source of life-sustaining water for whatever wildlife that is still left in this area.

But the end is already in sight, within a few years, the green jungles will have gone and so will the animals they harbour. The plans for a gigantic factory have, in the jargon of officialese, "been given the clearance."

It is to be a coke oven plant. Did those who gave it clearance, pause to reflect on what effect such an act will have on this last remaining rain forest – the last samples of Indian wild animals? Above all, did the very political leaders who ever so often, make public appeals such as the one I quote below, have anything to do with giving the clearance?

October 1 to October 7, is usually celebrated as wildlife week.

Last year our Chief Minister J. H. Patel and Forest Minister Gurudasappa S. Nagamarap-palli made a joint appeal to us citizens to save our state’s forest and wildlife. They took out advertisements in prominent newspapers which carried a picture of two splendid tigers sprawled on a patch of vivid green grass and invited the readers to:

Save this picture

It may be the only thing we have left of our wildlife

In what may have been an admission on the past failures of our leaders, the massage went on:

"Our shortsighted approach to forests and wildlife will lead to dire consequences to mankind itself." The two ministers then invited readers to "join a march for conservation," which was to be held in Bangalore on October 6, 1997, and called upon everyone to "report illegal forest activity and trade in wildlife products." The message ends with the words:

Save forest. Save wildlife before it is too late.

It was an earnest, almost passionate appeal a cry from the heart. So I, a citizen to whom this appeal was addressed, hereby report what promises to act as a deathblow to whatever North Kannada still has left of either forest cover or wildlife.

An Environmental Action Group called Kalpavriksha, which is based in Pune has prepared a report on the inescapable effects that the coming of the coke oven plant will have on its surroundings. Here are its salient points.

The process of manufacturing coke calls for unimaginably high levels of heat — of a range between 1100°C and 1400°C.

There is just no way you can generate heat of such cosmic intensity and prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere: the sizzling heat-levels alone will, within a few years, wither away all vestige of greenery in the surroundings.

The plant will spew out massive amounts of solid wastes: coke-grit, ash, coal-dust will float in the air and come down to settle as a deposit of tar to fossilise everything it coats within a matter of years.

Then there are the white-hot liquid emissions, sulphur and other chemicals which will be released into the water system to saturate both the Supa lake and the Kali river with toxics – a quick way of killing all wildlife.

Save forests. Save wildlife. Before it is too late.

You appealed to us. Or is it already too late? Did you really mean that we should cut out that tiger photograph to remind us of them and their habitat? That you both, with all your clout and all your concern for the state’s wildlife and forests, have been unable to cover the faultlines in the administrative machinery that are permitting this project to materialise?