Amidst the extravagant obscenity of the Ambani pre-wedding in Jamnagar last month, there was, for me, one bright spot of hope. It was news of the establishment of Vantara, the "world's largest private zoo", spread over 1000 acres in which more than ten million trees have been planted, in Jamnagar, Gujarat. According to a very well researched article by Ayaskant Das and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta in Newsclick [An Amazing Zoo Story, 29.2.24] the facility is a personal venture of one of the Ambani scions, Anant Ambani, and contains 1461 endangered and 3889 non- endangered species of animals, some of them imported. Vantara has a long history of litigation, objections and questions raised by animal activists. There are issues like: Is it (as it claims) an elephant rescue and rehab centre under the Wildlife Protection Act? Have wild elephants been shifted to the zoo in violation of the Act and rules? Have the rules been tweaked to accommodate the Ambanis? Are private zoos permissible at all?
These questions will no doubt wend their way through our tortuous judicial system, and I am not commenting on them because they are not the focus of this piece. What I find welcome is that, perhaps for the first time in India, a prominent corporate entity has taken an interest in a matter relating to the natural environment, and in rehabilitating essentially wild species of animals. Even more heartening is the fact that this initiative is being partly funded by CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) funds which are otherwise disbursed more on political grounds than anything else. This may be the first baby steps towards the conservation and rewilding of our diminishing natural eco-systems, including their wild life.
Rewilding is a concept and initiative which is gaining traction in many parts of the world, though it is yet to arrive in India in any meaningful way. What it seeks to do is to revive degraded habitats and their indigenous biodiversity which is being destroyed by mindless "development" (in India, think Andaman and Nicobar mega container/tourism/power/township project, the 20000 acre solar plant in Ladakh, Aarey forest in Mumbai, four lane highways through National Parks and tiger habitats, continued decimation of the green cover in the Western Ghats, just for starters). Restoring these areas is no favour to Nature, it is in our own interest. For wildlands provide four essential ecosystem services that sustain all life on this planet: provisioning (timber, food, medicinal plants), regulatory (climate moderation, water flows, carbon capture), cultural (sacred groves, tourism) and supporting ( nutrient cycles, pollination).
[ No architect can replicate the beauty of this canopy ]
There is an urgency to the "wildlands philantrophy" because forests and bio-diversity are disappearing at an alarming rate. Globally, 10 million hectares of forests are lost every year, about the size of Portugal. 30% of the Amazon rain forests are gone. India has lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000 [Global Forest Watch]. 500 animal species have become extinct, and animal populations have plummeted by 70%, in the last 50 years. It is estimated that one million species of all life forms are staring at extinction, primarily due to anthropogenic interventions, including climate change. Rewilding could be a means to reverse these trends.
The job is too big for governments to do, even if they had the political will or aptitude to do it, which they don't. In India, particularly, our colonial minded forest departments, badly funded and poorly led, are ill equipped to meet this challenge. Just to provide an example, take our flagship conservation programme, Project Tiger: the NTCA (National Tiger Conservation Authority), which oversees 52 Tiger Reserves, has an annual budget of Rs. 50 crores, as compared to the Delhi Horticulture Deptt. which is provided Rs. 125 crores every year! Ranthambore National Park has just about one fifth of the number of Forest Guards it actually needs. It is no different in other countries, which is why the initiative for rewilding globally is being adopted and pushed by individuals and corporate entities.
There are many dimensions to, and models for, rewilding, including creation of National Parks, Wildlife sanctuaries and marine sanctuaries; removal of dams and allowing the rivers to flow freely again leading to revival of fish populations and restoring livelihoods of people who have traditionally depended on them(European countries have removed almost 700 dams in the last two years, according to figures compiled by Dam Removal Europe; the USA has removed 2119 dams since 2012); creating nature habitats in urban areas as more and more natural and farming habitats are taken over by sprawling urbanisation. Needless to say, India is an outlier and laggard in all these initiatives, except perhaps the first. Our governments are content to trot out fudged figures of forest cover and tiger populations, and to maintain that our forest area is increasing every year. Whereas the truth is that dense forests have been declining at an alarming rate and what has increased is open forests and scrub land, according to the Forest Survey of India reports. To maintain this statistical charade the definition of "forest" is being regularly diluted: the current one defines any area of 2.50 acres with a tree cover of 10% as Forest! As pointed out by conservationist Aditya 'Dickie' Singh, that would mean that both the Bombay Gymkhana and Delhi Golf Club are forests! (With the mandatory watering holes, of course, to cater to the wildlife which gathers there).
[Continued in Part II next week]
Amidst tortuous heat and election cry there comes a shade which is heart throbbing. The photos attached speak volumes about the need and urgency to follow the norms of Nature.
ReplyDeleteBrilliantly penned !
I would hold no brief for Vantara. It is a private zoo built brazenly by bending many laws.
ReplyDeleteThere is no question of rewilding. No animal there will ever smell freedom. Animals have been taken from the wild and held captive just to provide an ego boost for the owner. Exotic birds illegally trapped are 'rescued' from smugglers and put into cages for life. It has been touted that for every bird confiscated 9 did during transit. If this is not promoting wildlife trafficking, what is?
Tigers have similarly been 'rescued' from private collections in South Africa and they even plan to house 1000 elephants.
Building first class facilities is only an excuse for keeping animals in captivity
Vanatara is a vain and hair brained scheme..You don't illegally procure and transport on forged papers elephants from the lush and wet North East the habitat for pachyderms.for thousands of years to the dry and arid area of Gujarat and that too next to a refinery. Preserving the animals.on their natural habitat is the best way to conserve! What Ambanis are trying to do is just vain display of.misguided compassion for animal life .with their usual trademark.cheating and forgery etc thrown in !
ReplyDeleteHey guys, you're all going off on the wrong track- this blog is not about Vantara but about rewilding; Vantara was just a peg to hang the whole blog on. Let the courts decide whether the means used to procure animals for Vantara were legal or not (so far they have not so determined). In any case a 1000 acre open preserve is much better and humane than locking them up in cages or small enclosures, as most zoos do..It is also a state of the are rescue centre. Let us not go the other extreme. Let me reiterate- it's time our corporates stepped into the area of restoration and rehabilitation of natural life- Vantara, even with sll its faults and shortcomings, is a welcome first step.
ReplyDeleteShocking state of forests in HP. Forest Department and corporation of HP can't even lift dead trees in state capital to sell and make money. No expectation from them to plant.
ReplyDeleteSomehow I feel the forests should be having a stake in forests. Then only they will nurture them. Right now its like Forests belong to the "Sarkar" and people around try to steal from the Powerful and all Owning Sarkar. In princely times, punishment for such transgression was swift and stinging. No longer. In democracy the citizen rules. Government servants like forest guards and even policemen are shit scared of acting against anybody for fear of repurcussions by courts etc
But, Avay, you have given Vantara as an example of re-wilding, which it is not. The only thing Vantara wants to do is build the largest zoo in the world. It has no intention or inclination to rewild. Otherwise Royal Bengal tigers and 'rescued' (more likely trafficked) baby elephants in the deserts of Gujarat! Where, atall does re-wilding come in, in this example?
ReplyDeleteI have NOT cited it as an example of rewilding. I have said it is "the FIRST STEP towards rewilding' and have welcomed the use of CSR funds for preserving nature. We shd welcome the entry of corporates into this field and give up the colonial mind set towards forests and wildlife. Govt is not the only stake holder in their preservation, and it is our inability to admit this which is the prime reason for their rampant destruction. Individuals can do a much better job, as I will show in Part 2.
ReplyDeleteTo emphasise Rewilding and cite Vantara as the first tiny step towards that is a dichotomy incompatible by any metric. The project is opposed to every cornerstone of Rewilding, which is essentially reintroducing animals to their natural habitat by rebuilding their denuded environs. In a holistic way, coming from humility and penance at the destruction caused by rapacious greed. Vantara is the artificial creation of a dense foliage in a dry, arid geography, achieved by audaciously subordinating Nature with an inexhaustible source of money and a limitless desire to triumph. It defeats the objectives of Rewilding by translocating wild animals over a thousand kilometres from their natural grounds to a territory inherently hostile to their existence, but made hospitable by employing appliances and contraptions. In the process, taking the wild out of rewild and making them domesticated creatures, more the playthings of a very rich boy. Similar to the Kuno project of Cheetahs at the behest of one individual, despite concerns voiced by the erudite and the experienced.
ReplyDeleteAvay Shukla's passion for Rewilding is empathetic; his 'reliance' on Vantara as a first mover illustration is unacceptable.
Wrong, Mr Patankar. There is no "reliance on Vantara " for rewilding unless you deliberately choose to misread my words. I welcome it as only a first step towards corporates showing some interest in nature. What's wrong with that? It is a rehab centre and a zoo, and a much better one than the ones in our congested metros. Zoos all over the world house exotic animals from different climatic and geographical regions, and no one complains about them. Then why are the daggers drawn for Vantara alone? As far as i know it has all requisite permissions from various departments and the central Zoo Authority. The courts have found nothing irregular too. It would help if you have any credible evidence to the contrary and shared them here. Merely because the Ambanis are behind it is no reason to run it down. Don't let the ideal be the enemy of the good. You are free to rail against me in your usual way but I welcome Ananth Ambani's initiative from a larger perspective, that of the participation of corporates in matters related to nature. If this leads to their entry into rewilding, so much the better.
ReplyDeleteIf the verdure of Bombay Gymkhana, a stone's throw from the high profile Cathedral and John Connon School, qualifies as a "forest", official caprice could label a few potted shrubs in a balcony the "woods". A distressed Aditya 'Dickhead' oops 'Dickie' Singh must be in frenetic metempsychoses mode transmigrating from one blade of grass to another.
ReplyDeleteThe flawed Cartesian dualism of abiota and biota must go if Gaia, Mother Earth, is to holistically regenerate. The tidbit about the Ambani eco-initiative Vantara part funded by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not eyebrow raising as the CSR theme, drawn from economist Howard Bowen's 1953 writings, is hijacked by the World Economic Forum where desi gofer (errand boy) Mukesh Ambani is listed as a member of the Foundation Board. Holism and sustainable development, resting primarily on systems thinking and deep ecology, as emphasised by Fritjof Capra, the Austrian particle physicist turned ecological proponent and founder of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, should form the bedrock of environmental protection and restoration.
Major ecosystems with rich biodiversity like the Amazon, African savannah or Silent Valley should remain under state protection in collaboration with reputed international agencies to provide expertise and to monitor the work undertaken by governments with corporates chipping in to preserve or restore parts. Private parks or private zoos should be abolished as they are shallow and ill-thought exercises in exhibitionism. In Africa, several private reserves serve as sources of circus animals and trophy hunting.
Unchecked human activites and overpopulation have activated the Holocene die-off - the 6th mass species extinction. 99% of the 10 million species that nature has churned out are extinct. A 1994 study by reseachers at Stanford University concluded the ideal human population on earth should be 1.5 to 2 billion.
As an aside, is the reference to the recent obscene pre-marriage splurge by the Ambanis a case of sour grapes or authentic outrage spurred by ethical parsimony? The aspirational pack of fake billionaires oops billionaires whose thick-skinned members would willingly skinny dip in a puddle, or streak as did Protima Bedi, or auto-amputate a limb and hop on one leg till it enters catalepsy eaten by gangrene or struck by paralysis, or lop off a rival's head, to get the tiniest slice of the pie made not of leavened flour but of trillions of green bucks whose crumbs are thrown by the global elites to the "conscience compromised" wanna bes to manage in return for fat monthly salaries with major expenses like crass pre-nuptial celebrations, private jets and pricey properties like the 27 storeyed cantilevered mansion Antilia on South Mumbai's tony Altamount Road built on controversial Wakf Board land, paid for by the powers that be.
Avay would recollect drawing attention to the first public mention of rewilding - a John Vidal, Guardian article of 2016, in which the billionaire Topkin-McDivitt couple's (of the Patagonia/ North Face/ Esprit empires) initiative to rewild Patagonia. A few indisputables emerged :
ReplyDelete(i) big private money is essential. Apart from 'showing credibility', it motivates government reciprocity, a crucial support ingredient (as happened with IG and Project Tiger; anti-quarrying and sand mafia).
(ii) Rewilding literally brings the wilderness back.
(iii) The wilderness includes all flora and fauna destroyed, neglected, chased away. Including, in South America for example, the anaconda, the feral peccary 'new' pig and other residents, both harmlessly large and dangerously tiny.
(iv) The Patagonia project became the model for the US National Park system of walking trails, camping and unplanned confrontations, with, for the overwhelmingly most part, a fluent back up admin and rescue system for animal and man.
(v) Despite initial fights with farmers and fishermen, Patagonia has convinced people to see where the non-commercial benefits are, which bring in twice the commerce at less than half the destruction.
American farmers have returned to beaver support and tree dams as the rcc monoliths are gradually being taken down (BBC/ April/ Essentials).
Replication is possible in every country. Few where riches are as untold as here.
The Ambani-Vantara project is unfortunately disadvantaged with regard to reputation (with, typically, an obscene & grotesque, way over the top irrelevant introduction); modus operandi and suspect motives.
Unless the young man can turn things around for janta to compare, understand and revel in the national park/ game sanctuary - reserve forest experience , it may forever remain a big zoo.
But if he can learn enough to get out of the 'suit-boot image' he could make something truly valuable happen.
If he can't maybe he'll have the bigness at least to hand it over to his betters - more experienced and knowledgeable pros.
But look at it from whichever angle and you should see an opportunity.
error - Tompkin....
ReplyDeleteYes, Kabir, i remember that Tompkins article which was shared amongst us, it was what stirred my interest in the subject and led me to research it. And you're absolutely right about Vantatra being an opportunity which, if done right, can lead to bigger things.
ReplyDeleteAs we debate, another elephant Malti is being sent from Jaipur to Jamnagar for treatment. This is welcome insofar as Vantara is a modern rehabilitation centre for injured and traumatised wild animals. If more Vantaras are attached to our national parks and animal reserves with a decentralised operational missive under State collaboration, many more can benefit from the magnanimity of the owner’s philosophy of “pashu sewa”. The sanctuary would perhaps then be worthy of its moniker “Star of the forest”.
ReplyDeleteIf it sheds its image of being a private zoo housing exotic animals for trophy and display, in a terrain cultivating dense foliage by manipulating Nature, Vantara will serve the higher purpose that Avay Shukla portrays of Rewilding. One wishes this to happen.