It is time we redefined what we mean by conservation and what constitutes gender issues. Why?
I am in Almora, where a group of anguished women are telling me how their already hard life has become harsher and just impossible because of marauding monkeys and wild boar. Their stories are heart-rending. One woman tells me how her young daughter was attacked; another talks how she was mauled. She shows me her scars. All talk about how their crops are being devastated. "We get one-third to even less" now. Nothing is left, another says. "We can't sleep as it is at night wild boars plunder crops" says another.
This after huge, back-breaking work is required to get this food. In the Himalayas, women (and there are no men to speak of in agriculture in this region) collect large loads of green fodder, carry it on their back up and down precipitous slopes all to feed livestock, not for milk but for manure. The steep mountain terraces are poor in fertility and this is the only way to improve productivity. Now even this is threatened.
Their pain is palpable. They are no longer safe in their homes. Their livelihood is being destroyed. One woman tells me with obvious contempt: "the government says it will give us grain under the food security act. We tell them keep it. Your grain is sub-standard and poor in nutrition. Protect our land and we will give you double the grain - our mandua is nutritious and healthy."
I ask them why they are raising this issue now. After all, they have always lived in this forested region where animal attacks are common. The older women reply, quickly and strenuously: "We have never seen anything like this. The numbers have multiplied many times." I then say that this is clearly because we have destroyed habitats of monkeys and other wild animals. Forests are being destroyed and so animals are turning to find food in human settlements. It is our fault, I said.
"We have not encroached on the forests. It is the city that has grown and taken over forest habitats." What surprised me was the next response: "These are not our monkeys. These are aggressive and violent." I probe more. The forest department it seems was bringing drugged monkeys from other places and leaving them in the forested villages. All this was being done at night and people had no information.
This did not surprise me. Because even in Delhi where the rich and famous live, when the monkey menace grew, these were "relocated" to what seemed to forested regions at the outskirt of the city. Now people like me can be wildlife enthusiasts, without the pain of animals in their backyard. But it did make me realise just how callous (indeed criminal) our conservation policies are.
I summoned the courage to ask what they wanted. After all, monkeys are worshipped as descendants of Hanuman. Will they allow killing? First there was silence. I could feel the tension. Then one woman burst out, "yes", she said. These monkeys are not Hanuman but Bali - the evil one. The rest joined in. We want government to act. This would mean that Uttarakhand government would have to declare monkeys vermin - and then undertake culling.
Currently, governments are struggling to deal with the menace by doing what is clearly failing - relocation or sterilisation. Sterilisation means capturing the animal, holding it for three days, sterilising it, and then freeing it. The programme is designed to fail. There are too many animals; capture is difficult and it is impossible to know which animal has been sterilised. Worse, there is no idea of the optimum number that needs to be caught and sterilised - and so breeding continues. Primatologists say that at least one-third of the population needs to be sterilised to stabilise (not reduce) growth. This is impossible to achieve.
What then is the solution? It is difficult to say. The Uttarakhand government has recently declared wild boar vermin, but who will kill the animal? In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, the monkey has been included. But where are the guns? The forest department is least bothered about helping villagers. These villages are run by women - the men have migrated or are looking for jobs outside agriculture. In one case, the women described how they ganged up and took out sticks to beat the animal that was marauding their field. "It turned on us and had to take cover."
The fact is that we must find a solution. It is not enough to shrug off this problem. It is urgent, real and causing huge damage and pain. It needs resolution.
But this is where the problem lies. One, the issue concerns largely women - but who will take up this "gender" issue. It is women who farm the precarious slopes of the mountains. We have no time for them. Two, the issue concerns how will we practice conservation. We want the pleasure of seeing animals in the wild, but without paying the real price of that protection. This is not acceptable. It should not be.
The writer is at the Centre for Science and Environment
sunita@cseindia.org
Twitter: @sunitanar
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