Actually the poor farmers are paying for wild life
conservation and is voiced by other national and international
agencies...............
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| curtsy: Climate Himalaya |
While the human wild life conflict is
seen as natural phenomenon for all living being having to live in one universe, it is more often fought between the wild animals and the
villagers who cherish their domestic animals and their crops to whom they depend
their livelihoods.
If there is no national and
international conservation policies to protect the wild species, the
winners will be the villagers who can hunt down or can poisoned
the wild animals to death.
But these poor farmers living in
villages by the forest sides are adhering to the policies that does
not favor much to their interest keeping by the imposed law, although it hardens their
livelihoods.
For instance, small tiny land locked
country of Bhutan is voiced for its rich biodiversity and forest
cover that give shelter to big cats. They are in Bhutan most probably because neighboring countries have used most of their forest and they are being pushed by
urbanization in its neighboring countries. So they find solace in this country which protected them at the hardship of poor farmers in the remote villages.
While the farmers are not allowed to
kill any of these wild animals and if killed is charged for
criminality with huge fines and penalties, their domestic animals
and crops lost to the wild animals are never compensated or if compensated.
The agencies concerned for wild life
conservation seems to work hard on getting support from national and
international donors and agencies interested in wild life
conservation to support compensation to the villagers for their lost
but gets nothing.
While it is the conservationists
interest to save wild life, the burden seems to be put on farmers who
do not actually having nothing to gain from conservation.
Why is the
government who voices importance of conservation and international
agencies who put so much importance in conservation does not comes
forward in giving a helping hand to these farmers who tries to
support the interest of the global conservationists. Rather than anything else, compensating farmers crops and domestic loss will mean who much conversationists care.
Only Nu500,000
from government(as reported in the MoAF website) was allocated just this time for compensation but international agencies are interested in research and not really conservation. If conservation is the key, they need to help their true partners, the farmer. What if they start to do what they should? do we throw them one after another in jail for protecting their livelihood? Why not step in and be the compensating agency to those poor farmers
who loses all what they have for what we call conservation? Isn't this one of the factors that is
challenging poverty reduction?
Over 2200 animals
have lost in past 10 years in Bhutan according to the figures
released on the MoAF's website, all that belongs to poor farmers in
remotes corners and nomads living in high mountains. And when these
cats pray on the yaks, every kill that counts from 5 to over 10
becomes a property of one poor family. Who is taking this note?
I
would say if you can't support these poor villagers, the farmers are
worth defending their own survival and livelihoods than to support an
interest which does not belong to them. Conservation programs have lots of money for research, collaring the animals, documenting and hell lots of other activities, but they have no money to compensate the loss of properties of a farmer. How fair is this?
Can we add a legal provision in wild life conservation act that the conservation
should not happen at the cost of a farmer's livelihoods or just one
provision that shall say a farmer who losses its property to wild
animals be compensated by the concerned agency to its actual value?
Wild life
conservationists love wild life and puts interest in wild life
conservation. At the same time these farmers knows about their
domestic animals as much as you know about the wild animals and loves
them as much as you do.
So if
conservationists take their own means to protect their loving animals, why cant these
poor farmers take up measures to protect their loving feeders of
their family.
When these poor farmers are
supporting because the government law backs the global conservationists. Can that be rewarded with at lest a compensation worth to what they
lose.
