Fragmentation of forests led to elephants straying

The search for a larger patch of forests to make a home range may have led the two sub-adult males into the heart of Mysore, a city known more for its placid, caparisoned Dasara elephants.

Wednesday's rampage by the tusker — the other was a makhana which hid itself — left a security guard in a narrow bylane dead. Collateral damage included two dead cows, four injured passersby and a series of trashed vehicles.

While some elephant experts say that the fragmentation of forest land and non-availability of good and large patches of forests could be the reason for straying, it is also believed that sub-adult male elephants move out of the family herd to establish their own home range.

FORAGING FOR FOOD

“Social organisation of elephants is such that sub-adults wander on their own. In this case, they may have come in search of crops and may have deviated from their path,” Raman Sukumar of Centre for Ecological Sciences at Indian Institute of Science told The Hindu. It is their natural behaviour to migrate, but unfortunately they went into the city, he added.

In the past, Prof. Sukumar pointed out, males have been found to have traversed long distances for home range. “Just a few months ago, one was found near Chitradurga and it had traversed from near Bannerghatta. Similarly, years ago, another male, which had traversed around 300 km from near Hosur/ Bannerghatta forests, was captured on the East Coast,” he said.

FRAGMENTATION

Declining quality forest cover, fragmentation of forests and encroachment of elephant corridors could all be reasons for wild elephants straying into human habitations. “Such incidents will only increase in future unless urgent and drastic measures are put in place to preserve the rapidly declining forest cover,” said wildlife biologist and elephant expert Ajay Desai.

MAN-ANIMAL CONFLICT

“Due to fragmentation of forests, elephants are living in patches that may not be of good quality or too small or medium size to make them their home range,” he added.

“Sometimes, they wander in search of a better place, and come in conflict with human beings,” he said.

SEVERAL INSTANCES

He pointed out that there are instances of elephants straying into villages near national parks and people being trampled. He said that “because it came to Mysore, it has become big news, though we have been raising these issues for years.” Meanwhile, addressing the issue of the elephants straying from the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, B.C. Chettiappa, Assistant Director of Veterinary Sciences, said a distance of 35 km is no big deal for elephants. When they mean business, they can easily cover this distance in less than three hours, he said.

 

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shaggy sheep who gained notoriety after avoiding being shorn for years is being mourned by New Zealanders after dying.

Shrek hid in caves on his farm in the South Island for six years and when finally found was clad in 27 kilos of wool, five times the norm.

The Merino sheep's stubborness captured the public's imagination and he was shorn on live TV. Shrek died of ill health aged 17.

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Tropical forests better managed

The world's tropical forests are better managed now than five years ago, concludes a survey by the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO).

The area under some form of sustainable management plan increased by about 50% over the period; but about 90% of tropical forest lacks protection.

The most significant improvements have been seen in Africa, the report says.

The ITTO is a pro-sustainable use trade body whose 60 member countries account for 90% of the global timber trade.

Its current report - Status of Tropical Forest Management 2011 - analysed data from 33 important forest countries, including the really big players such as Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia.

"The top line is that the area under sustainable forest management has gone up from 36 to 53 million hectares in five years," said Duncan Poore, one of the report's authors and a former head of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

"That's a substantial improvement, but there's still a long way to go," he told BBC News.

"Forests scheduled by ITTO members as permanent forest cover 760m hectares - so what's under sustainable management is less than 10%, which is disappointing."

Deforestation 'to continue'
Countries that have made major increases in protection include Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Peru and Venezuela.

However, satellite observations recently revealed an alarming escalation in deforestation in Brazil, indicating that loss of forest in some areas of a country can continue even as protection increases in other areas.

"My personal view is that it's more important to make sure that countries decide what forest they want to keep and for what purpose, and look after that satisfactorily, than to weep crocodile tears over deforestation," said Dr Poore.

"The reality is that in most countries, deforestation is going to continue. But if they look after areas that are really important ecologically, that may not be a problem."

The ITTO report makes clear that pressures leading to forest clearance are continuing to rise, with the expansion of the world's population, growing use of raw materials such as wood, and increasing demand for land on which to settle and grow food.

The big hope of many in the conservation community is that rich countries may soon start funding poorer ones to protect forests in the interests of absorbing carbon dioxide and curbing climate change.

But despite years of discussion, establishment of an international mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) remains elusive, largely because of wider disagreements within the UN climate convention.

Bringing a REDD scheme into existence would, said Dr Poore, be "very important" for the long-term health of tropical forests.

 

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new bill relaxes laws on the deforestation of hilltops and the amount of vegetation farmers must preserve.

Brazil has taken a big step towards passing new laws that will loosen restrictions on the amount of Amazon rainforest that farmers can destroy, after its lower house of parliament voted in favour of updating the country's 46-year-old forest code.

In a move described as "disastrous" by conservationists, the nation's congress backed a bill relaxing laws on the deforestation of hilltops and the amount of vegetation farmers must preserve. The law also offers partial amnesties for fines levied against landowners who have illegally destroyed tracts of rainforest. The legislation, which must still be passed by the Brazillian Senate and approved by President Dilma Rousseff, aims to help owners of smaller farms and ranches compete with under-regulated rivals in countries such as the USA and Argentina.

At present, under Brazil's forest code passed in 1965, 80 per cent of all property in the Amazon basin is supposed to be left as untouched forest. In other parts of the country, that figure ranges from between 20 and 35 per cent, depending on the ecosystem of the particular region.

Farmers found to have breached the regulations have until now been required to pay large fines and plant sufficient trees to bring their landholdings up to required standards. But the system is scrappily enforced and only 10 per cent of landowners are currently believed to be in complete compliance with the rules.

Under the new code, forest that was illegally cleared between 1965 and 2008 will be exempted from regulation. In addition, farmers will, for the first time, be allowed to count land along rivers and lakes as part of their legal preserves. And strict rules governing deforestation of hilltops and slopes will be relaxed.

"It's a disaster. It heightens the risk of deforestation, water depletion and erosion," Paulo Gustavo Prado, head of environmental policy at Conservation International-Brazil, told Reuters. He believes that the new bill will result in the loss of roughly 10 per cent of Brazil's remaining rainforest.

Philip Fearnside, of the government's National Institute for Amazon Research, told the Associated Press that the "amnesty" for farmers who broke the law before 2008 will result in further illegal deforestation.

"The proposed amnesty upholds a long tradition in Brazil of legalising the illegal. People believe they can deforest illegally because sooner or later all will be forgiven."

Supporters of the bill, who have been heavily lobbied by farming groups, say the old forest code was impossible to enforce, and argue that the more relaxed laws will help them achieve better compliance.

They also decided to veto the clause in the new forest code most feared by conservationists, which would have completely removed all limits on preserving trees for small farmers and ranchers.

About 20 per cent of Brazil's rainforest has already been destroyed, and the battle to preserve the remainder arouses heated debate. Yesterday, it emerged that a green activist, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, had been shot and killed in the jungle state of Para in northern Brazil. He recently predicted that he would be murdered for criticising deforestation by local ranchers.

A watchdog group, which protects activists and small farmers in the region, said yesterday that the gunmen had cut off Mr Silva's ear, probably so that they could prove to the people who hired them that they had carried out the hit.

 

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157,000 tickets for the Chelsea Flower Show, which opens today, sold out in record time this year.

The show gardens are utter falsities. They pretend they've long been there, instead of having been knocked up in days. They pretend to be elsewhere than they are - Australia, Malaysia, Monaco, Wales, not on Royal Hospital Road. They are plays and installations, not gardens at all, strictly speaking.

That's true even of the more naturalistic show gardens but plenty this year are outright fairground attractions, even rides. In Diarmuid Gavin's Irish Sky Garden, a potty pink gondola, turfed over both above and below, plus its passengers, is being cranked up and down by a graceless crane, allegedly having been inspired by the floating islands of the movie Avatar. In the B&Q Garden, a cramped stainless steel staircase that belongs to an in-store, multi-storey car park is planted up with basil, peppers and tomatoes, plus some gaudy calendulas, "to encourage individuals and communities to develop new local and sustainable food growing spaces".

"A Monaco Garden" proves to be a luxuriously appointed swimming pool with sun-loungers. ("I listen to money singing," Philip Larkin wrote: "It is intensely sad.") Even those gardens with appealingly practical planting (increasingly adapted to dry conditions this year, with lots of valerian, alliums, verbascums, acanthus and tulbaghias) must boast whopping great columns too, or a shed lavishly adapted from a shipping container. Rills of water bubble up everywhere, inexplicably.

Of course, the heart of Chelsea is not these outrageous concoctions but the fantastic stands of specialist growers gathered together in the Great Pavilion. Here they all are - clematis, hyacinths, lupins, heucheras, daffodils, tulips, foxgloves, lilies, lavenders, hostas, orchids - astoundingly displayed, many of them exquisite, others that could only be loved by single species obsessives, not to say paraphiliacs.

The old favourites, Peter Beales and David Austin for roses, Avon and Broadleigh for bulbs, have glorious displays. But even here, beautifully presented, in total perfection, are varieties that would otherwise never come together in time or space.

These stands are wholly artificial. These are roses that have never known a drop of rain, bulbs that have been held back and forced on with the greatest expertise, to bring spring back, as never in nature. In its own way, it's just as baroque - you might even say surreal -a display.

But then, though it may be for gardeners, a garden is the one thing the Chelsea Flower Show is not. It's a fair; for all the royal patronage and the mighty sponsors just a grander version of the fairs that have been held for centuries. As such, it  can only be embraced and revelled in.

In his great poem Show Saturday, Philip Larkin lovingly detailed the humdrum events of an ordinary agricultural show as something people share, "That breaks ancestrally each year into/ Regenerate union. Let it always be there." Chelsea too. Cranky gondolas and all.

 

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50 per cent

CYCLISTS in Scarborough are being invited to jump on your bike and ride right through the heart of the North York Moors National Park.
A new easy to use guide, the ‘Moor to Sea Cycle Network’ means there’s no excuse not to make the most of the park, 50 per cent of which is in the Borough’s boundary.

The guide which is packed with useful information on the wildlife and heritage a cyclist might expect to see on route. It costs £3.50 and is available from tourist information centres, local shops and online from www.visitthemoors.co.uk

Covering more than 100 miles of routes, the Moor to Sea Cycle Network takes the rider through heather moorland, ancient forests, rolling farmland and out to Scarborough’s coast line.

The guide breaks the network down into nine sections each with its own map, terrain description, timings and distances. Using mainly forest tracks, green lanes, quiet roads and bridleways, all the routes in the guide can be cycled over several days or you could pick one or more sections for a day cycle.

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