Nowhere to fly How to save India's vanishing birds

There are but a few hundred Great Indian Bustards left. The bird — one of the heaviest capable of flight, and found only in the subcontinent — is slowly vanishing. India’s owl population is in similar decline; and the vulture, once a common sight in India’s cities, has almost disappeared. Now comes news from the International Union for Conservation of Nature that 14 more species of birds from India are critically endangered. Aside from vultures, the IUCN lists the Himalayan Quail, once abundant, and the majestic Siberian Crane, which used to migrate in such large numbers that they would fill the sky. Some of these birds are central to the Indian landscape and to this country’s myths. Others have an irreplaceable role in controlling the population of pests that affect crops, or of vectors for diseases that kill human beings. By some estimates, at least 82 of India’s 1,250 bird species are fading into history. Anyone living in India’s cities just has to look around to see that sparrows, once numerous, are now rare — their cheerful chirrups have vanished from the urban soundscape. And the Himalayan forests are losing the partridges and pheasants for which they were known. How has India got here? Partly, because birds continue to be hunted and captured indiscriminately. True, harming threatened birds has been criminalised, under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 — but that is one of India’s laws more honoured in the breach than in its observance. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, created specifically to control the illegal trade in wildlife, including that of vulnerable birds, seems to have proved utterly ineffective. In any Indian city, collectors can buy rare birds in open violation of the law. Yet human action that has a more indirect effect may nevertheless be even more to blame. Habitat is lost or degraded. Pesticides render the birds’ food toxic; pollution poisons their water and air. Plant species introduced from afar warp the ecosystem. In addition to the many other environmental follies associated with the widespread planting of eucalyptus trees, they do not harbour indigenous birds or their nests. Nor is there any escape from these factors, even though some have been grudgingly mandated by a crowded country. The bird sanctuaries that dot India are in dismal state. Some of them, set aside as landing sites for migratory birds like the Siberian Crane, have seen their wetlands and water bodies shrink drastically. Click here for Cloud Computing Also Read Related Stories News Now - Gogoi for sustainable green economic development for assam - Ocean life adrift - DPCL rejects green groups' demand to stop work at Dhamara Viewing the plight of India’s bird species in isolation will only compound the error. It is a recurring feature of India’s conservation efforts that they focus on individual species — the tiger, the Asiatic lion, or the gharial, for example — instead of recognising that it is the larger ecosystem that needs preservation. Nature is constructed of interlocking parts; biodiversity is essential. An obsession with a single animal means that, even if its population in reserved areas rises, the mix of different species becomes skewed. While the vanishing of India’s birds cannot be further ignored, it should be a reminder that this strategy is fatally flawed. Each species has a role to play in any ecosystem. Drastic changes are needed to India’s conservation policy. Perhaps the most important move is that most, if not all, of the country’s 440-odd sanctuaries — including bird sanctuaries — should be declared natural biodiversity conservation tracts, where the entire range of India’s fauna and flora, once the envy of the world, can thrive, subject to the natural checks and balances that evolution has cunningly devised.