mapping rurban biodiversity: rejuvenating enriching traditions
when we think of biodiversity, we often think of wild forest or gardens, or farms in plains or mountains. seldom do we realize that there is a lot of biodiversity even in the villages and cities. But leaving aside the tree lovers and botanical students, most people somehow remain indifferent about it. What if we organize an annual competition among urban housing societies, institutional campuses, government complexes, personal gardens etc., to reward the most diverse private, cooperative or public campus, personal or public garden and private collections. We could do the same thing in rural areas. We could also enumerate trees older than hundred years and form groups of children in the neighbourhood or find other arrangements for conserving them. While we must plant thousands of trees every year and this year there is already a campaign on for the purpose, but conserving what we already have is no less important. let me share some traditional ways of conservation which will tell us that when there was much less threat to the environment, communities had developed such diverse ways of conservation. why has the urge to conserve gone down with much higher pressure on nature?
In many fishing communities, during rainy season when fish move upstream into shallow waters to lay eggs, there is/was a taboo on fishing. The fish during his period become very dull. They could be easily caught but they are not. Similarly in certain parts of Japan, there are special temples where pregnant sea animals are buried and one prays to seek forgivance for catching pregnant animals by mistake. In some communities, gillnet of less than four inch mesh size is not allowed lest small fishes are caught. Social boy cot follows if some one uses small mesh size net to maximise the catch. Obviously the motivation of the communities which evolved such rules must have been to conserve resources in the long term and not just in short term.
When dry land farms were ploughed by bullocks or camels, it was easy to bypass tree saplings in the cultivated fields. After mechanical plough, it became difficult to do so, the tree density on cultivated fields came down.
we should also count trees which have the highest number of nests of birds. in some of the villages in gujarat, people tie thorny plants on the stem of such trees during the period when birds lay eggs, lest cats or other such predators prey upon the eggs of the birds or their young ones.
can these traditions survive only in historical records. Can we not revive such sustainable practices in our daily lives here, and now. hope to hear from the readers about number of species they could count in their neighbourhood, old trees they could locate and other stories about conservation of nature, before these are lost. I must compliment all those readers who called me up after the column on water conservation and promised to enage with the issue in some practical way. Ideas without action are sterile and actions without thoughts about long term future are suicidal. let us look far, act now and ensure that our grand children do better than us………………
Anil K Gupta
