Conflicts in the conservation universe

Human versus animal, development versus terrain, city versus village - this edited volume will make you think and question commonly held beliefs and assumptions about conservation

Nature Contested: Ecology, Society, and Environment in Contemporary India

Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan, Ravi Agarwal and Rinki Sarkar

Published by 

Orient Black Swan

225 pages ₹955

 This one is not for the faint-hearted. A collection of eight essays, this is written for those who themselves study or are passionately interested in the environment and conservation. Being a quasi-scholarly work, it is filled with jargon or if not that, then scholarly terms that are often hindrances to easy communication. To put it simply, this is not popular science. This is a discussion of the conjunction or indeed the dichotomies of lineage-based exclusion and a-historical narratives. Keep your dictionary handy and your brain on full alert at all times.

 

Having got past that hurdle, however, there is much to interest and digest. This collection puts forward the issues of conflict within the conservation universe. Human versus animal, development versus terrain, city versus village, rich versus poor, elite versus downtrodden, forest versus cultivation, and more are presented to make you think as well as question commonly stated norms and values about the conservation and protection of nature from human destruction.

 

The editors introduce the idea: “This volume is an opportunity to widen the canvas beyond refugia and holds out the hope of building wider networks to conciliate economic producers and nature. At the same time, rethinking nature requires not only acknowledgement of its resilience but also of the vulnerability of certain key processes and species under both state and community stewardship.”

 

(Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the language.)

 

The opening two chapters are eyeopeners for the lay reader in the sense of “state and community stewardship”. While much is written and discussed about our mountains and rivers, our oceans are largely forgotten, except for coastal development issues. Aarthi Shridhar and Divya Karnad, in their individual essays, take us straight into India’s maritime communities and the various crossed lines between traditional and localised artisanal fishers, commercial fishing and migratory fishers. The impact on marine life is as complex as the price paid by humans, whether from environmental or commercial decisions on which they have had no say. The lack of voice leads to discrimination and slavery-like conditions in some areas.

 

One argument that runs through the book is the conflict between urban elite conservationists and the rural or non-urban often tribal or Dalit communities that exist on the peripheries. Hita Unnikrishnan, Haren Nagendra and Manjunatha B takes us on a fascinating — especially for the uninitiated — journey into the water bodies and green spaces, which made up the area that is now the city of Bengaluru.

 

We have been made aware, over the years, how indiscriminate building on water bodies, or of using them as waste disposal sites, has contaminated life in Bengaluru. But now we learn of all the communities who lived around these bodies and in the “commons”, who have been marginalised or removed so that the urban sprawl could grow.

 

Nityanand Jayaraman’s dive into Chennai’s development is a lesson for all cities that ignore their ground realities in their haste for growth. When neither terrain nor ground realities are taken into consideration, disaster often ensues. In the case of Chennai, it is abundant rain and then extreme water shortages. Across India, versions of such crises repeat themselves with increased ferocity.

 

From south India we jump straight to Assam, where Arupjyoti Saikia’s essay explores the history of community and difficult terrains. The unpredictable nature of the mighty Brahmaputra dominates this chapter, as we learn how traditional almost nomadic living and agricultural and fishing practices have been tamed by concrete and bricks only to find that neither geography nor geology will listen.

 

The next two chapters introduce us to conflicts between the rights of ancient or traditional inhabitants of lands to be “protected” and between humans and animals. Anand Vaidya looks at how Adivasis and Dalits are divided when it comes to forest rights, whether by ideologues or their own societal issues. Or indeed, whether they are together in reality despite all efforts.

 

Meera Anna Oomen presents a human-nature conflict in an area of great concern but perhaps not much discourse in popular conversation: Between people and pigs. She provides an interesting historical, religious and social background to an old fight between humans and Sus scrofa cristatus or the Indian wild pig. We still see them in semi-urban areas and farmers often complain. Again, we see how there is no one size fits all solution or answer. Those who live on the margins of society suffer most from arbitrary decisions taken from on high to save this or conserve that.   

 

Nature Contested  will challenge the reader in a number of ways, from long-held positions or populist ideas to accepting intersections and interjections into the usual. A word of advice, if you have eye issues and use an e-device to read, that may be advisable. The print is small and the ink too light. Conflict it seems is everywhere!

 The writer is an independent journalist