A planter by profession, Rahul Choudhary is on an extensive tour to all the sanctuaries, national parks and tiger and elephant Reserves in the country. In a chat with V.S. Palaniappan, he talks about his mission to propagate awareness on the conservation of wildlife population and to rope in like-minded nature lovers.
Tribals were the original owners of the forests and human beings are the intruders and encroachers, he says.
Rahul accuses some of the self-styled organisations and self-proclaimed conservation movements of using wildlife and conservation as a banner for making money.
Wildlife Management policies and guidelines are good and highly ambitious, but it lacked adequate focus and required infrastructure. Frontline staff in the forest department required more gadgets and infrastructure to implement the policies without any flaw. Rahul also believes that all poachers should be reformed and involved in Joint Forest Management as a process of rehabilitation
There is a need to form a Task Force for wildlife conservation through which poaching should be brought to an end, grass lands and water holes should be increased and maintained well so that the prey-predator proportion remained balanced.
Such a healthy habitat management is needed to bring down instances of man-animal conflicts in fringe areas of the forests, he added.
He also want eco-tourism to be encouraged but it should be guided and restricted so as to minimise human interference in the native domain of the wildlife.
Intrusion into the wildlife domain in the name of research should be ended. Radio collaring animals should be stopped as there had been cases of poachers using radio collar transmitters to track down animals.
Unrestricted tourism which increases vehicular movement in the forests is a threat to wildlife. Ecotourism which is guided and restricted could be allowed in the form of elephant safaris alone. Or else electric or battery operated vehicles alone should be used for vehicle safaris to prevent emissions polluting the environment.
The wildlife in this country requires a two year holiday from any kind of disturbance, he says.
Rahul is now trying to rope in the support of nature lovers for forming a group that could put in practice his ideas and ambitions. ‘If no body hears your call, go alone you would be heard by the almighty’, says Rahul.
He in now developing an organisation in Coimbatore called the ‘Vanishing Herd Foundation’. Nature loving people like R. Vijay Mohan and Shanta Ram have joined the organisation and the processes for forming the Foundation for propagating awareness on conservation in this part of the country with a special focus on the vast stretch of Western Ghats had already begun.
He also requests the like-minded nature-lovers to mail in their ideas and enrol themselves at wildlifelondon@yahoo .uk.
