Happily uprooted

Reserved for exploitation?

After refusing a World Heritage Site tag by UNESCO for its pristine Western Ghats early this year, the Karnataka government has recently shelved a proposal to upgrade the conservation status of 12 reserve forests in the mountain range.

Letters - January 15, 2012

It is not a Zoo Apropos of the article, “Don’t just cash in on tigers” (December 1-15, 2011), “eco-tourism” is restricted to brochures, books, and talks by wildlife resorts. One should understand that anything done in the name of tourism is not always right.

Science and Technology - Briefs

ZOOLOGY Dog was made in China

Killing ground

Flamingos are dropping dead in one of their favourite breeding grounds on earth. In the saline flats of Gujarat the birds accidentally collide with or get electrocuted by high-tension cables and telephone lines that pass over their breeding grounds in the Rann of Kachchh. Residents and ornithologists say they witness mass deaths of the pink-feathered bird across the region every year. But the state forest department says it has reports of 139 flamingo deaths only this breeding season.

Our tigers, their tigers

For layman and conservationists alike the Sundarbans conjures the image of the graceful Bengal tiger and the mysteries surrounding its man-eating ways. It is but rarely, one gets to know of the people of the Sundarban islands who share habitat with the big cats.

Don’t just cash in on tigers

Eco-tourism, as the world understands it, means impact of tourism on wild habitats and wildlife is deliberately kept low. It also means that local conservation contexts are acknowledged and efforts are made to improve the economic lot of communities living around a sanctuary or national park. Eco-tourism must make tourists more aware of the need for, and challenges to, wildlife conservation. But all this requires that the people who run the show themselves are responsible; it precludes outright capitalism as motive for entering the tourism business.

Science and Technology - Briefs

HEALTH Chemical alert Occupational exposure to a chemical used in dry-cleaning solutions and to degrease car parts raises the risk of Parkinson’s disease six-fold. Scientists linked Trichloroethylene to the brain disorder after studying 99 sets of twins. One in each pair was a sufferer of the illness, which can cause limb tremors. The US Environmental Protection Agency says the chemical is a carcinogen. Annals of Neurology, November 14 (online) HEALTH SCIENCES Skip a beat with sweet fizz

Letters

Sundarbans in peril This refers to the article, “The secret garden” (November 1- 15, 2011). The Sundarbans is one of the largest mangrove forests and home to the famous Royal Bengal Tiger and numerous fauna, including spotted deer. Situated in the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta of the Bay of Bengal, the forests cover an area of 10,000 sq km, of which about 4,000 sq km lies in India. The rest is in Bangladesh. In 1987 it became inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site. But today the ecology of the Sundarbans is at risk due to illegal felling of trees and rampant poaching.

Whales’ killer ways

ABBC film crew has captured footage of killer whales working together to create waves to sweep their vulnerable prey into the water. Scientists who worked with the film crew said the sequence filmed for BBC documentary Frozen Planet offers new insights into killer whale ecology.