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Wildlife trackers said that they have not been paid since March and that their service contracts, which are generally renewed in May every year, have not been renewed till date this year.
Written by Gopal B Kateshiya | Rajkot | Updated: June 29, 2020 11:27:51 pm
The service contract renewal and salary payments to wildlife trackers working at the Asiatic lion landscape in the Greater Gir area have been delayed as the Gujarat State Lion Conservation Society (GSLCS) couldn’t hold its annual meeting to discuss the same due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Wildlife trackers said that they have not been paid since March and that their service contracts, which are generally renewed in May every year, have not been renewed till date this year.
“My salary is around Rs 10,000 and I had not been paid for the last three months… Not getting it for three consecutive months makes it all the more difficult to support one’s family, even though one continues to work,” said a tracker who tracks the movement of wildlife, with special focus on Asiatic lions, in Gir forest everyday.
The tracker said that he received his salary for May and wages for the work he had done during the non-contract period in April, only two days ago.
“For the last four years, our salaries have not been increased even though we do the bulk of the work of tracking Asiatic lions and rescuing them… We mostly ride our two-wheelers while on duty but don’t get any petrol allowance,” said another tracker from Shetrunji wildlife division, adding that he was awaiting his salary for April and May.
There are 160 wildlife trackers working in Gir forest and other protected areas where Asiatic lions are found. These trackers are local people who know about behaviour, habits, routines, etc. of lions, keep a track of daily movement of major fauna of Gir landscape and assist the forest department.
They are engaged by GSLCS on 11-month-long contracts, which are usually signed in May and expire in March. The trackers continue to work in April but in the absence of a formal contract, they get paid their wages through vouchers.
These trackers were also a part of forest department teams which conducted the exercise to estimate the population of Asiatic lions even though they didn’t have formal service contracts, said sources.
Shyamal Tikadar, principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), chief wildlife warden of Gujarat and GSLCS chairman, said, “The meeting was scheduled to take place in April but we couldn’t hold it due to the pandemic and therefore, there was a delay in paying salaries and renewal of contract. Now, we have issued a circular as an interim arrangement and besides Shetrunji division, trackers in other divisions have been paid their salaries with arrears.”
Tikadar said payments were still pending in Shetrunji division as it is a newly-created division and there is a shortage of staff.
Dushyant Vasavada, CCF of Junagadh wildlife circle, said Shetrunji division will pay salaries soon. “Being a new division, it had teething problems. The deputy conservator of forests there didn’t have financial powers until very recently. Now, it has been sorted out and the trackers there would be paid their salaries within a couple of days,” said Vasavada.
The member secretary also rejected allegations of not increasing salaries. “Just last year, we had increased salaries by around 10%,” he said. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/gujarat-with-lion-society-meet-postponed-salaries-of-wildlife-trackers-delayed-6482263/
June 28, 2020 Mysore/Mysuru: The following individuals and institution have adopted the animals of Mysuru Zoo under ‘Adoption of Animals’ scheme by paying the adoption fee:
V. Poornima, Bengaluru – Mandarin Duck, Star Tortoise and Common Rat Snake – Rs. 5,000; Suchith Raghu Rao Bengaluru – Spotted Deer (Female) – Rs. 7,500; K.B. Boregowda, Bengaluru – White Peacock – Rs. 3,500; Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran (P) Ltd., Mysuru – 2 Asiatic Elephants, 1 Asiatic Lion, 1 Bengal Tiger, 2 Giraffes, 2 Zebras, 1 Chimpanzee and 1 Southern White Rhinoceros – Rs. 10 lakh. https://starofmysore.com/animals-adopted-at-city-zoo/
African lions are one of the world’s favourite animals. But their numbers have been shrinking over the past century, especially over the past 30 years. Some scientists estimate that their numbers have halved since 1994.
Estimates of the total population of Africa’s king of beasts vary, but a recent CITES report suggested that only about 25,000 remain in the wild, across 102 populations in Africa. But the numbers in this report aren’t particularly reliable. Most used traditional survey approaches – like counts of lion footprints, audio lure surveys or expert opinion - and many were not peer-reviewed.
These traditional methods of counting lions produce highly uncertain estimates. A count of lions using their footprints may give you an estimate of, say, 50 lions in an area. But the uncertainty around this estimate could be between 15 and 100 individuals. This large uncertainty makes tracking how lion populations change from year to year nearly impossible. Our recent review shows that the majority of methods used to count African and Asiatic lions use these less robust methods.
Two young lions rest in the branches of a Euphorbia tree on the Kasenyi Plains of Queen Elizabeth National Park.Alex Braczkowski
Making sure that lion numbers are accurate and reasonably precise is key for the species’ conservation. Estimates of lion numbers underpin their classification as ‘vulnerable’. They also form the backbone for controversial management practices like the setting of trophy hunting quotas.
The good news is that better ways of counting lions are being developed. So called spatially explicit capture-recapture methods are useful for conservation because they tell us not only how many animals live in an area, but how they move in a landscape, what their sex ratios are and even where their highest numbers are located. This method has been used to count tigers, leopards, jaguars and mountain lions for over a decade but it is only now becoming popular for lions.
A review of 169 peer-reviewed scientific articles (Web of Science and Google Scholar) showed many lion abundance and density estimates rely on traditional methods like audio lure or track surveys.
Spatially explicit capture-recapture methods use a mathematical model which incorporates the individual identity of animals (usually from photographs of natural body markings, spot patterns or even whisker spots) and their location in a landscape. By identifying and “marking” individuals over a period of time an estimate can be made of the total number of animals that live in an area.
Better methods from East Africa
This method was first used to count lions in a 2014 study in Kenya’s Maasai Mara. The lead authors capitalised on a historic way of identifying lions: their whiskers. Every lion in the wild has a unique whisker spot pattern, very much like a human fingerprint.
Recently, some of us applied this technique in a count of African lions in southwestern Uganda, in a region known as the Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area. These lions are interesting because they have a rare culture of tree-climbing. This means they have great local tourism value as each lion raises about USD$ 14 000 annually in park fees.
The status of lions in Uganda was not previously very well understood. After a wave of intense poaching during the unstable Idi Amin and Milton Obote regimes - 1971 to 1985 - during which time wildlife numbers plummeted.
But recent aerial surveys and radio-collaring studies suggested that lion prey numbers were recovering. A radio collaring studyof lions from 2006 to 2010 also showed that lion home range sizes were small, and because range size is predicted by abundant prey, this suggested lions here were in good health.
Uganda’s lions in peril
From October 2017 to February 2018 we drove more than 8 000 km in 93 days searching for lions in the Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area. We obtained 165 lion detections. Using individual identifications from photos, we calculated that on average one could expect to find about 3 individual lions per 100 square kilometres, with a total of 71 lions in the entire area.
Scientists during a census of the lions in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area.Steve Winter
We used the spatially explicit capture-recapture method to assess how lion movements had changed from the home range study performed a decade earlier. Worryingly, our results showed that lions had increased their ranges significantly in just 10 years - above 400% for male lions and above 100% for females.
Also, there was only one female for every male in the wild. This is very different to other African lion populations which have a much higher proportion of females relative to males (about two females for every male).
Next steps
From the standpoint of lion conservation and recovery these results are concerning. But, on a positive note, this finding has provided a timely alert. And we recommend the use of this relatively novel survey methodology to assess other lion populations across Africa.
Four young lion cubs trigger a camera trap set on a waterbuck kill on Queen Elizabeth’s Kasenyi Plains.Alex Braczkowski
More recently, in 2020, another rigorous study at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, applied this approach and found that this method estimated lion population size to be about a sixth of what was previously thought. The Kenya Wildlife Service, in collaboration with local partners is now using spatially explicit capture-recapture in an ambitious nationwide survey of lions and other large carnivores at all potential strongholds across Kenya.
More broadly, these results further bolster the view that by relying on ad hoc, indirect methods to detect lion population trends, we may end up with misleading answers and fail to direct scarce conservation resources optimally.
We argue that all stakeholders involved in lion conservation across Africa and Asia should use rigorous survey methods to keep track of lion populations. These results should then form appropriate baselines for continent-wide reports on lion abundance, and help inform strategies aimed at their recovery.
Rajkot: A 60-year-old woman’s nose was fractured after she was attacked by a leopard in Harmadiya village of Gir Somnath district early Saturday morning. The victim Sakruben Mer suffered several injuries on her face and throat and is admitted to the Junagadh civil hospital for treatment.
According to forest officials, the incident took place around 3am. The house of the victim is located on the outskirts of the village which is close to Jamvala range of Gir West forest division. The village is habitat of several other wild animals, said a forest official. While Sakruben Mer was sleeping inside the house, her husband was sleeping outside. Around 3am when Sakruben woke up to attend nature’s call and came out of her room, a leopard pounced on her. She started screaming for help which woke her husband up. By the time Sakruben’s husband grabbed a stick, the leopard fled from the spot. Sakruben was taken to nearby primary health centre and from there she was shifted to a private hospital in Kodinar town. Since the woman would require hospitalization of 5-6 days for treatment of her nose, her family decided to shift her to a government hospital. The forest department arranged a vehicle to take her to Junagadh civil hospital. Assistant conservator of forest D P Vaghela of Jamvala range said, “Sakruben received injuries on her face, between her eyes and nose. Her nose has also been fractured.” He added that four traps have been set up in the village to capture the leopard.
“They risk their lives everyday working in difficult terrains and braving myriad hostile elements – poachers, encroachers, smugglers, mafias, human-wildlife conflict, health hazards in the form of water-borne diseases, forest fires and of course, accidental deaths by wild animals.”
Last year, Dimbeswar Das, a forest guard who has patrolled the Kaziranga National Park for the past three decades to protect one-horned rhinos and other animals from poachers, won the prestigious Earth Hero Award from the Royal Bank of Scotland.
“He has faced poachers’ bullets and threats, survived charges from rhinos, wild buffaloes, elephants, and big cats, and had to move houses several times to evade threats to his family — all in the service to the protection of the national park, a national asset,” read the award citation.
Speaking to The Better India earlier this year, Dimbeswar had said, “This isn’t an easy job but I have loved every bit of it. I want to plant more trees in and around the forest area so as to prevent it from diminishing so that the animals who live here never lose their home.”
Forest Guard Dimbeswar Das
And he’s right about the forest guard’s job not being easy.
The best of them aren’t scared to face a poacher’s bullets, see eye to eye with natural predators like tigers, confront angry villagers, while also risking their lives in extreme altitudes and weather conditions, barely spending time with their families, and battling disease and extreme loneliness to protect our natural heritage.
But not every story has happy events like Dimbeswar’s.
There are many forest guards and their support team consisting daily wagers who assist them on the frontlines, who lose their lives, suffer serious injury and mental scars fighting against difficult odds.
In 2014, India was the highest ranked country when it came to forest ranger (‘uniformed service or the frontline staff of the forest department’) mortality. According to the statistics released by the International Ranger Federation, between 2012 and 2017, India accounted for nearly 31% of all forest ranger deaths in the world.
They operate under impossible working conditions, poor equipment, low pay, benefits and inadequate resources, but still manage to help pull off some of India’s greatest conservation stories like Project Tiger, the 29% spike in the Asiatic Lion population in Gir National Park, Gujarat since 2015 and the revival of the one-horned rhino population in Kaziranga.
A forest guard on duty in a foggy morning in Kaziranga National Park in Assam. (Image courtesy Talukdar David/ Shutterstock.com)
Who are Forest Guards?
“In India’s institutional forestry structures, the most important administrative unit is the forest division, headed by a Divisional Forest Officer (DFO),” notes a document published by the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations affiliate body. In every forest division, there are eight-ten ranges. A forest range is further divided into subranges and beats.
The lowest administrative unit is the forest beat, which may comprise 10 to 15 sq km of forest area. In a range, there are three-four beats manned by beat officers. In every beat, there will be a forest guard or forest watcher, the frontline staff, who man these protected areas and are first responders to a case of poaching, encroachment or any kind of crime.
“During the colonial period with the Imperial Forest Service, officials heading forest departments were mainly European. They would hire local forest guards who were physically fit, and their main objective was inspecting the boundaries of forests, ensuring boundary pillars remained intact and to protect the area under their supervision from encroachment. Back then, a forest guard or a range officer used to take inspections of their boundaries to see whether it was encroached upon or not,” informs Ramesh Pandey, a 1996-cadre Indian Forest Service Officer and recipient of the UNEP Environment Enforcement Award winner last year, speaking to The Better India.
He is currently posted as Director of the Delhi Zoo.
But the subsequent increase in human and livestock population and their dependency on natural resources introduced new pressure points on forests. These points were defined by activities like illegal felling of trees, unlawful collection of forest produce, poaching animals for bush meat, etc.
Today, apart from protection work, forest guards are also involved in forestry activities like preparing grounds for plantations, raising nurseries for plantations, and protecting those plantations to convert them into jungles.
Further, in the last couple of years, they have also donned the role of interfacing with the forest-dwelling communities by either being part of joint forest management committees or eco-development committees in protected national parks and sanctuaries.
“Challenges can arise any time. In the morning, for example, he goes to the nursery and supplies planting material at a site. He’s the person in-charge of overseeing the plantation. When he gets free at say 6.30 in the evening, he is probably required to go on a night patrol to prevent any illegal activity from happening. It’s a very challenging job,” adds Ramesh.
Forest guards’ salaries vary from one state to another. In some states, they are paid as much as a police constable, but in many they aren’t even paid that much.
While the forest guards are permanent employees, they also have daily wagers, known as “watchers” who support them in the field. All of them constitute the frontline field staff.
Apart from facing issues related to the rising human population and consequent encroachment in forested lands, what makes matters worse is that the role witnesses massive vacancies.
According to Prerna Singh Bindra’s report for IndiaSpend in late 2018, “(Forest) staff shortages average about 30% across India. In some reserves like Palamu in Jharkhand, it has hovered around 90% over the last decade and improved only recently.”
Meanwhile, this Hindustan Times reportin 2017 notes, “Forest guards, both the regular and temporary, cover large swathes of forest land. There are about 200 forest guards, both temporary and permanent at the Rajaji National Park, with each guard covering anywhere between 500 to 1,000 hectares.” Vacancies, on an average, however, stand at around 50% and during the peak season, one forest guard has to do the work of two.
Moreover, these frontline staff work in remote areas. A higher workload with inadequate infrastructural support in terms of accommodation and vehicles has resulted in an increase in poaching cases. Finally, the resources to protect our forests by both state and Union governments are not seeing an increase in budget allocation.
“The hardships were countless. First, some of the places they are posted are unbelievable. Take the Sundarbans for example. The floating camps in the middle of the core area of the forest are suffocating small, dark, dank boats that are shared by 4-5 forest guards. It’s frightening. There’s no easy access to freshwater, limited rations, no phone network, no source of entertainment, not even land to step on. Some are posted in these camps for years, on a single boat in the middle of nowhere,” said natural history filmmaker Ashwika Kapur, to Mongabay.
Forest guards need adequate hardware (infrastructure facilities) and socio-emotional care.
“I’ll take the example of the Indo-Nepal border, where protected wildlife zones like Dudhwa, Valmiki Tiger Reserve or Manas National Park are situated. There are border guarding forces like the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) on the Indo-Nepal or Indo-Bhutan border. The border outposts of SSB are far more inhabitable than the dilapidated chowkis of the forest department. These facilities are gradually improving in national parks but not in all of them, which needs attention. Improvements should not be merely restricted to tiger reserves, but to each and every forest area. Besides chowkis, they need vehicles, fire hydrants, rations, a variety of allowances, medical facilities and transit hostels for their children, among other facilities,” says Ramesh Pandey to TBI.
But he believes that the time has also come to address the socio-emotional care aspect as well with a special focus on mental health. How do you keep forest guards happy, connected with the cause and motivated?
“For many guards, it’s just a beat and not a tiger reserve. They don’t see that saving tigers means saving humanity. For him, it’s a beat, living in a dilapidated chowki and going out for night patrolling. He doesn’t oversee things,” he adds.
“We have to really explore the emotional aspect,” says Ramesh, who during his previous posting as Field Director of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, was working on an initiative to address socio-emotional care that forest guards need since they live in remote areas far away from their families with no electricity and communication networks. But he was transferred before he could take any steps in this regard.
“What we want for forest guards, who are fighting this battle and losing their lives in the process, is that the spotlight must shine on them like it does on police personnel or soldiers. Forest guards working in remote areas are fighting a battle that many people know nothing about,” says a veteran forest service officer, who wishes to remain anonymous.
This senior officer feels that the Union government must play a bigger role in looking after forest guards with adequate infrastructure and mental health facilities.
“While they take credit for the success of conservation projects like Project Tiger or successful afforestation initiatives on various international or multilateral platforms, what is the point of making these claims if they don’t strengthen or empower frontline staff who are actually working towards ensuring that these achievements are met? For example, when governments claim that so much carbon sequestration has been done, it’s somebody working on the field who is ensuring that this is happening. Why aren’t they being looked after properly?” he asks.
Every year, the government claims certain achievements like increasing the tiger, rhino or lion population. If the policies for wildlife and forest conservation are set by the Central government, why don’t they claim responsibility to look after infrastructure support as well?
“I am not suggesting you give a vehicle to every forest guard, but at least at the beat level, the Central government can supply water hydrants. If the force working on the field is not strengthened, there is no point talking about the big conservation issues. Somebody has to do that work on the field and that is the frontline forest staff who will stop poaching and encroachment. They are our first line of defence in protecting our forests,” he adds.
Even in terms of compensation for the kin of those who have died in the line of duty, he believes that aside from the state government, the Centre can play a bigger role. If not anything else, at least give their children a scholarship.
Meanwhile, compensation from state governments for forest guards killed in the line of duty, also varies from one State to another, but oftentimes proves to be inadequate.
In Maharashtra, for example, given the spurt in human-animal conflicts, the government has raised the human death compensation to Rs 15 lakh from Rs 8 lakh.
But when Sadashiv Nagthane, a forest guard deployed in Bhor, Pune, single handedly sought to quell a blazing fire and died in the line of duty in 2018, the Maharashtra Chief Minister granted a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to his family.
Ramesh shares the story of Sukhpal Singh, a forest guard in Dudhwa, who was murdered while on duty. While his family received Rs 25 lakh from the Uttar Pradesh government, he says slain forest guards normally don’t receive state honours like their compatriots in the police or armed forces.
“When state forest departments hire forest guards, half of them end up leaving. We must improve their pay scale and look after their health. In remote areas, mosquitoes, leeches, diseases and loneliness are bigger enemies. It’s a 24/7 job, and the pressure on them is intense,” says the veteran forest service officer.
While we tout the bravery of medical professionals at a time like this, it’s time to recognise forest guards who also save lives.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra) https://www.thebetterindia.com/230557/uttarakhand-indian-forest-service-dfo-sandeep-kumar-uttarkashi-dayara-bugyal-meadow-india-nor41/
