As a researcher at the Indian Institute for Science Education and Research, I once monitored the birds that inhabited the high wet grasslands of the Daying Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected area in northeast India. This habitat is part of one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Yet, despite their ecological importance and uniqueness, most grasslands are classified by the Indian government as ‘wasteland’. I wondered why it was, as I stood on the deck of a government outpost, watching a critically endangered Bengal florican – a bird native to the grasslands of South Asia – performing its courtship of short jumps with its thick neck pouch extended.
Ecosystems around the world are reeling from the effects of uncontrolled habitat loss and climate change. While all types of ecosystems (forests, grasslands, oceans, wetlands and deserts) feel these effects, there are evidence bias in favor of research and conservation of forest biodiversity. These landscapes have been prized for their economic value since colonial times. However, this bias is detrimental to the preservation of other ecosystems, in particular the grasslands that make up 24 percent of India’s landmass. These grasslands are home to immense biodiversity and support the livelihoods of millions of people, but are defined in India by their value in being converted to forests for climate mitigation. It is time for India, and other countries with grasslands, to place the ecological and social value of these ecosystems above their economic value. Trees can do little to save us and our climate, and the biodiversity of the tall grasses and vast plains of this planet deserves our attention and protection.
To understand how the grasslands became “wastelands”, we need to understand how British settlers valued high-quality timber from Indian forests. They harvested trees for building, laying railway lines in India, and shipbuilding, all of which supported Britain’s economic expansion and war efforts. The British also undertook planting wood supply maintenance operations. This led to the formation of the Imperial Forest Service, whose primary mandate was to assist with British forestry. At the same time, the British government created the baze zamin daftar (Wasteland Department) to map and control areas, such as grasslands, that they deemed economically unnecessary.
The forest service also called grasslands »degraded forestbecause they believed that these more open stretches of land could have supported forests had it not been for what they called the “destructive” practices of the indigenous and pastoral communities that lived there. These two designations ultimately motivated the conversion (or “restoration”) of grassland habitats to forest landscapes, as we show in a recently published article. paper This critically analyzes grassland conservation policies in India. It also led to the displacement of indigenous and pastoral communities who depended on the grasslands for their livelihood. Criminalized colonial authorities (through regressive acts such as the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871) communities and unjustly denied them any control over these “wastelands”. The colonial government was particularly wary of pastoral Or “wandering” communities and invoked the Criminal Tribes Act to penalize them for activities that included livestock grazing – an important mechanism for maintaining grassland habitats. As Atul Joshi and his colleagues report in their paper on the colonial impact of forestry at high altitude shola grasslands, the colonial officers also began to convert these grasslands into fuelwood plantations. Acacia And Eucalyptus to supply settlers, while prohibiting indigenous communities from using them as firewood.
As forests are ecologically complex, so are grasslands. They range from the dry and semi-arid grasslands of central and western India to the wet grasslands of the Himalayan riverbanks, through the high altitude grasslands of the Western Ghats and the cold desert grasslands of northern India. ‘India. These lands also have deep cultural importance based on their role in pastoralism or burning practices. Yet the historical framing of grasslands – and indeed other non-forest ecosystems – as “wasteland” continues to hamper preservation efforts.
While colonial officers had economic motivations to convert the grasslands, today governments around the world are banking on forests and forestry to mitigate climate change. To this end, global efforts are being made to map potential areas for afforestation initiatives, but these efforts often identify grassland ecosystems as good candidates for afforestation, threatening more than one million square kilometers grasslands in Africa, for example. In India, we find something similar: large expanses of grassland intended for large-scale reforestation activities.
Yet grasslands could be just as good, if not better, for store carbon. Besides being expensive and defectivea strategy based on carbon sequestration also neglects the ecological and social value of grasslands by converting them to monoculture forests, which do not provide the same ecological benefits.
India and other countries with important grasslands must recognize, support and prioritize evidence-based scientific efforts that focus on grasslands by establishing long-term monitoring plots and grassland-specific restoration effortsas well as by cartography their extent and the ecosystem services they provide to humans. At a time when environmental justice is at the forefront of conservation discourse, now is the time to abandon colonial labels such as “wasteland” that have led to violence against marginalized people. caste and class.
Already, communities like the TodayTHE Phasepardhisand the Idu Mishmi people protect grasslands in India through collective action and local management. These roles also help them regain their dignity and connection to the land. In the spirit of righting wrongs and with the aim of preserving the richness of nature, governments must restore greater freedom of action and rights for Aboriginal peoples, pastoral and marginalized communities to manage grasslands and include their knowledge in grasslands restoration. Grasslands are an important feature of an ecologically sound India, which must be preserved for this value above all others.
This is an opinion and analytical article, and the opinions expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of American scientist.