Globalisation and Biodiversity Conservation in India
Contents
- Introduction
- Globalization and the environment
- Globalization in India
- Global strategies for conservation
- Conservation in India
- Protected Areas
- Protecting species: Case of the Tiger
- Protecting traditional knowledge
Introduction
In India, there is a wide variety of ecosystems and animals, many of which are safeguarded by regional customs and beliefs. This mindset and strategy are attested to by sacred trees and animals. There are numerous community-conserved locations documented throughout the nation. Numerous species, including the tiger, crocodile, turtle, and others, are worshipped as deities or because of their connection to such beings. Although many of these activities are accepted in society on a traditional basis, they are not always protected by the law.
Since the colonial era, Indian law has supported a highly centralised method of developing policies for the conservation of biodiversity. The regulations enacted prior to independence were intended to encourage the extraction of natural resources with a high economic value, such as lumber, bamboo, tendupatta, etc. Following independence, the emphasis turned to biodiversity preservation, primarily in response to the global agenda, however the majority of laws and policies have been put into practise by the central government. The State only recently become aware of the importance of individuals in conservation initiatives.
There are numerous laws and policies in effect today that, occasionally, conflict with one another. Although local participation is welcomed, national and international authorities are typically those who determine the necessity, goals, nature, and scope of conservation measures in a certain area or region. In this module, we'll examine how India's biodiversity conservation programmes have changed as a result of globalisation trends.
Globalization and the environment
The process of interaction and integration between individuals, businesses, and governments from many countries is known as globalisation. International trade, investments, and information technology all contribute to its growth. Globalization has existed for a long time. People have been interacting and trading for millennia, but it wasn't until recently that the pace picked up due to technological advancements that created new economic prospects and methods of operation. Today, it is believed that globalisation has had a significant impact on the environment, cultures, political systems, economic growth and prosperity, and the welfare of individuals and societies around the world.
Globalization in India
After the onset of globalisation and particularly since the liberalisation of the nation's economy in 1991, India's society has seen significant changes. There have been some negative effects as well; not all changes have been favourable. Globalization has also had an effect on protecting natural resources. The pace of industrialisation and infrastructural growth accelerated starting in the 1990s, having a detrimental effect on the environment, ecosystems, and biodiversity. During this time, India also ratified international agreements to protect the environment and biodiversity. India started biodiversity conservation strategies. Traditional conservation methods and the necessity of involving local communities were disregarded in the early stages of implementation. Later on, nevertheless, it has been acknowledged.
Global strategies for conservation
The need for protection of biodiversity has received wide recognition since the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. Globally, conservation strategies adopted by various countries can be divided in three broad categories. They are:
- Ecosystem preservation, primarily through the creation of Protected Areas. This group includes wildlife sanctuaries and national parks.
- By designating their natural habitats as Protected Areas, flagship species can be preserved. As a result, India has a number of tiger reserves as well as wildlife corridors (such as elephant corridors) that are also protected areas under the law.
- The protection of traditional knowledge through the enactment of particular legislation that addresses the problem of access. The Biodiversity Law of India is a prime example of such a protection strategy.
Conservation in India
The national policy for biodiversity conservation was derived from conservation concepts with roots in western nations. The design of national conservation policies has also been significantly impacted by globalisation. The planning of India's protected areas was modelled after that of the United States' National Parks. Indian protected areas were established, expanded, and managed in accordance with international environmental accords, major global conservation organisations, and multilateral and bilateral financial institutions. Global organisations like the United Nations (UNEP, UNESCO, and in particular the Man and the Biosphere Program, MAB) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature carried out these conservation initiatives, which drew on the experience, knowledge, and networks of prior agencies (IUCN). Additionally, there were alliances and partnerships with internationally significant NGOs including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund/Worldwide Fund for Nature, and World Resources Institute.
Protected Area
The foundation of India's conservation strategy is the identification and preservation of representative wild habitats throughout all of the nation's ecosystems. There is now a network of 733 Protected Areas (PAs) covering 1,60,901.77 square kilometres (4.89 percent of the overall geographic area). These Protected Areas include 26 Community Reserves, 67 Conservation Reserves, 537 Wildlife Sanctuaries, and 103 National Parks. For the purpose of managing tiger and elephant habitats specifically, there are 50 Tiger Reserves and 32 Elephant Reserves, respectively. Seven natural sites have also been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The idea of transboundary Protected Areas was developed because ecosystems and species do not respect political boundaries in order to coordinate the conservation of ecological units and corridors with bilateral and/or multilateral collaboration between neighbouring countries. Examples include the Sundarbans, which is a contiguous area in West Bengal and sections of Bangladesh, and the Manas National Park, which is adjacent to the Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan. Conservation's globalisation between 1980 and 2000 also gave rise to new problems and sparked discussions about the various conservation management practises used worldwide. The tension between strong protection and resource sustainability was one facet of the developing worry.
The late 1980s saw the emergence of a "second wave" of conservation interest that pushed for a wider integration of sustainably used habitats into the world's protected area systems. Environmental designations such as buffer zones, integrated conservation development programmes, eco-development programmes, and community-based conservation were used in these ecosystems (CBC). Prioritizing used ecosystems globally represented the growing understanding of the need to focus conservation efforts with the help of local communities in an effort to garner their support through sustainable development programmes.
Priority is given to sustainable use initiatives in such protected area units as buffer zones, community-based conservation, and biosphere reserves in the Global Biodiversity Strategy, which was developed following the 1992 Rio de Janeiro United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, also known as the "Earth Summit").
A survey conducted in the middle of the 1980s revealed that resource utilisation and human habitation made up more than 65 percent of India's Protected Areas (Kothari et al., 1989). According to Ruchi Badola, the fundamental management strategy for PAs has been isolationist, predicated on the dubious premise that some areas are pristine or primary, and that management must shield the park from locals residing nearby as well as protect wildlife and other natural resources from exploitation. This is accomplished by strictly enforcing the law, conducting patrols to deter criminal activity, and maintaining the infrastructure. In this case, coercive measures to safeguard PAs from human involvement have frequently resulted in locals' hostility against forestry and wildlife management employees, and occasionally in violent fights.
In order to safeguard Asiatic lions, Sasangir was made a national park in 1975. Pastoralist populations had lived there for many millennia, relying on the area's natural resources for their subsistence. An international group, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-India), supported the Gujarat Forest Department's decision to evict 845 households from Gir National Park as part of a World Bank-funded eco-development project. The policies of the banks protecting the rights of indigenous people and preventing forcible eviction were completely disregarded in this action. The Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, however, was utilised by the Indian government to legitimise the eviction. Even now, people are still being ejected from Protected Areas. Even the need to keep people out of protected places is questionable. Numerous ecological studies have demonstrated that not all human activity is bad for the conservation of wildlife. Around the world, patterns of biodiversity and forest quality now are influenced by previous land-use practises (Gomez-Pompa and Kaus, 1992). In certain instances, eliminating human activity from ecosystems might actually decrease biodiversity and cause habitat damage, yet in other instances, after human usage or habitation, some habitats have improved (Hussain, 1996). (Western, 1989; Ramakrishnan, 1992).
Protecting species: Case of the Tiger
International anxiety about the condition of the Indian tiger (Pantheratigristigris) peaked in the early 1970s. The World Conservation Union, or IUCN, had its general meeting in Delhi in 1969. The assembly demanded a tiger killing ban and quick measures to safeguard the species in response to a report by forester K S Sankhala. In response to this demand, the Indian Board for Wildlife launched a protection initiative and requested that governments impose a five-year moratorium on tiger hunting. Guy Mountfort, a powerful trustee of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), met with the then-prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1972 and pleaded with her to prevent the extinction of the species. The Project Tiger plan, India's initiative to save tigers, was approved in August 1972. In the already-existing protected regions, numerous tiger reserves were found, and their management was organised with tiger protection in mind. Project Tiger first adopted a cautious stance and recognised the necessity of moving forward with conservation measures after taking into account the fact that various people reside in the reserve regions. But starting in 1994, foreign organisations campaigned for the eviction of citizens. Even now, they do so, leading to acrimonious disputes between environmental groups and social campaigners.
The tiger population steadily decreased up until 1994. The number of tiger poaching incidents increased at the same time. Tiger Task Force, a body for reviewing the state of tiger conservation, was established in 2005 after it was discovered that all tigers had entirely disappeared from the Sariska and Panna Tiger Reserves. The Task Force highlighted the socioeconomic difficulties impeding conservation efforts in its 2005 report and suggested moving toward inclusive conservation for long-term benefits.
Protecting traditional knowledge
Resources abound in biodiversity, and understanding how to use them increases its worth. In India, there are many millions of people who share and utilise plants and animals for a variety of uses. Through the unrestricted interchange of knowledge, they have developed techniques for the extraction, preparation, treatment, and propagation of these resources. This expertise is currently being gathered for commercial use by (mainly) foreign agencies in the age of globalisation. The rules governing intellectual property rights in other parts of the world, particularly in the USA and Europe, were drafted in a way to justify corporate abuse of these rights. This has brought up a number of biopiracy-related challenges.
It is important to know the meaning of biopiracy:
Bio piracy ‘refers to the use of intellectual property systems to legitimize the exclusive ownership and control over biological resources and biological products and processes that have been used over centuries in non-industrialized culture’.
When scientists and businesses in the USA sought patents for the usage of neem and turmeric, India was shocked into taking action. Both have been used frequently by people in Asia for many years. Even though India prevailed in the legal battles with the corporation, the incident made it possible for IPR claims to be made against other crop types, medications, and other plant and animal products utilised in India. India and other developing nations have emphasised to the World Trade Organization (WTO) numerous times the need to recognise the rights of holders of traditional knowledge to a share of the benefits that result from innovation based on their knowledge and the biological resources they have nurtured. In order to improve benefit-sharing among the creators of the knowledge and resource, they have also suggested that patent applications should be required to reveal the source of origin of the biological resource and the knowledge related to it. This has faced tremendous opposition from the US because it would be a "legal and administrative nightmare". The U.S. taking such a stance will only lead to increased theft of biological knowledge and resources. Since the globalisation of economies, the problem of bio piracy and the illicit appropriation of shared knowledge of biodiversity has grown more significant. India has launched measures to document traditional knowledge in order to prevent others from claiming it. Procedures for confirming the intent of use of biological resources are established by the Biodiversity Act of 2002 of India. Additionally, it has developed a complex system for negotiating contracts for the use of biodiversity and information about it with local and governmental organisations.
An international agreement known as the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing in Tokyo (2001) aims to fairly and equitably distribute the advantages resulting from the use of biological resources, thereby promoting biodiversity conservation and sustainable usage. The Nagoya Protocol is ratified by India. Although the safeguards for traditional knowledge have been developed, they have not yet been fully put into use. These laws and their provisions have made it feasible to involve local people in deciding how to use their traditional knowledge. But whether they actually assist communities going forward or merely represent another method of centralised decision-making in regards to biodiversity remains to be seen. With the help of local communities, India has made a number of significant choices and passed legislation aimed at protecting biodiversity and habitats. However, in reality, significant international organisations set the goals of numerous programmes and actions. In spite of the well-established history of effective conservation by local communities in India, local populations are frequently only included in the final stages of a project and have little influence over it. Therefore, it is necessary to approach conservation from the bottom up by assisting local populations in defining the goals of conservation in their regions, with support from national and international organisations.
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