Wild Animals a big threat to Livelihood .

Wild Animals cause 2000 Crores loss annually in Himachal Pradesh

Shimala-19 August:

The wild animals has become a big threat to the agriculture and horticulture in the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh .The vagaries of the weather has already made the farming uncertain and now the menace of wild animals have worsened the situation .The crops sustaining conditions of insufficient and untimely rains had being destroyed by the wild animals leaving nothing with farmers to feed their families. Due to wild animals the problem of the livelihood have aroused before farmers and there is no one who could allay their concerns and make their crops secure from these animals. Having Lost hopes that governments on its own would understand their plight and do something decisive, these farmers with absolutely no political ideology have been gathering together and raising their voice against the callous attitude of the successive governments of the state as well as of the centre.

In a move to press the government to address their problem the dharnas, ralies have became common but nothing concrete has come from the side of the governments.

The severity of the problem:

The very fact that the ten districts out of twelve in the state are worst affected by these wild animals ,is enough to tell the graveness of the situation. These animals have been visiting frequently the farms and destroying the crops raised by the farmers with hard work of the months. The monkeys, wild bores, blue bulls, porcupines, jackals, bears etc. are proving fatal to the farming in a scenario wherein about ninety percent of total population of the state is residing in rural areas and is mainly dependent on the agriculture and horticulture for its livelihood. There are about ten lakhs families in state engaged in agriculture out of which about five lakhs families are directly affected due to crop damaged by these wild animals. In state about 2301 Panchayats, two-third of total 3243 Panchayats, have been directly affected by wild animals. These Panchayats are mostly in Kangra, Hamirpur, Una, Bilaspur, Sirmour, Solan , Kullu, Mandi and Shimla districts. The rampant damage to crops by wild animals have left the farmers in distress and have forced them to abandon the agriculture. This situation if continues could create a problem of food security in the future to farmers who has no other alternative .

Loss to Agriculture:

As being a hilly state, the Himachal Pradesh has limited land for cultivation and as a matter of fact only ten percent of the total geographical area of the state is cultivable. Finding no solution on their own the farmers have been leaving their cultivable land barren and as such forty percent of total cultivable land have become barren due to wild animals menace. The farmers are in no position to take more risk of raising crops as they have already suffered huge loss due to these wild animals. The loss due wild animal menace is estimated tune to 2000 crores rupees every year in Himachal. Besides near five lakhs affected families have been engaging themselves in safeguarding the crops in their fields and family had to keep at least on person on watching for twenty four hours in a day for about two months of crop season. This figure seldom comes in the mind of the animal rights organizations who fight for the animals and ignore the difficulties of the farmers. As is evident that damage to the raised crops is not only done through feeding but also a large part of the damage constitutes of trampling and rooting the crops by these animals.

Increasing population of Monkeys a big threat:

The problem of the crops damage has been become alarming because of the increasing population of the monkeys in the state as in the past thirty years their numbers have shockingly increased about 530 percent. Total estimated population of the monkeys was 60000 in 1980 which on basis of survey of 2004 had increased to about 3.17 lakhs. According a estimate total number of monkeys and langur in Himachal has gone more than five lakhs which would further increase in alarming proportion if the government does not initiate steps to control their population. The numbers of animals are more than the carrying capacity of their natural habitat and therefore they are running towards human settlements to satiate their hunger which has lead a conflict between human and animals.

Efforts by government are insufficient:

Though government claims to have taken steps to control the population of the monkeys by sterilization and making a provision of scientific culling of wild animals but with the general inertia on its part has not led much progress on these front. Sterilization programme to control the numbers of these herbivores have not yielded the desired results. Farmers organizations say that sterilizations of monkeys started by the state forest department could not be immediate solution to this problem as the number of these animals are large, on the other hand the process is very tardy. For the last four years the department had sterilized only 19500 monkeys.With the average of about 500 hundred sterilizations per year the claims of initiatives on the part of government repudiates it self. According to specialists the population of the monkeys could only be stabilized if the seventy percent of the total numbers are sterilized. This means that about 3.5 lakhs of the total population of the monkeys and langurs are to be sterilized to attain a condition of stabilizing. With this slow pace of sterilization it would take decades to reach this proportion till that time the agricultural activities would completely be halted.

The setting up a primate park for monkeys in Tara Devi near Shimla also proved to be impractical as the costs on feeding and rearing them was so high that government preferred to abandon that noble idea with in a few days of inauguration of this park . As in this park about ten thousand monkeys were to be kept, on which the government would had to spent crores rupees per year which was not economical viable. More over the keeping this small number in capativity could not have solved the problem.

The move of tans-locating monkeys from Shimla city and along national high way to rural area also was another effort made by government to decrease the pressure of these species, which also ended desperately . The areas where these monkeys were trans located became more prone to the threat of these animals and the situation worsened in those areas. This process was stopped due to inconvenience occurred to the people of these areas.

What the Farmers want:

Farmers and horticulturists of the state have been demanding to evolve permanent and effective solutions to this menace of wild animals. The Kheti bachao Sangharsh Samiti, the biggest organization of the farmers in the state, fighting for the cause of the farmers, have been demanding to lift the ban imposed on the export on monkeys since 1978. There are unmatched demands of the monkeys for clinical research in USA and European countries and by allowing export the pressure of these primates could become low on agriculture says Dr. Kuldeep Tnvar, the convener of the Kheti bachao Sangharsh Samiti.

Since there is ban on killing of wild animals under the Wild Life and Animal Protection Act-1972, the farmers have been demanding to include ten species of the wild animals in the section 62 of this act, and declare these animals vermin. By doing so the farmers need not to under go the cumbersome process of getting permission for scientific culling of the monkeys, jackals, porcupines, wild bores, black bears, sambars, blue bulls, parrots etc. The farmers, without prior permission, could kill the animals which threats to their lives and crops. In order to avoid misuse of this provision, the culling should be carried out by the forest department with the help of local people, Panchayats and NGOs, suggests farmer’s organisation. As spearheading the culling operation by the department itself is necessitated to avoid any untoward happing because if the people get riffles , the possibility of being misused them is more.

The government should make change in the aforestation policy and should plant the trees which these wild animals could use as their food. No doubt the Himachal has a vast area under forest cover but about 65 percent of this area has coniferous trees which are of no use for these animals. Instead there should be more emphasis on planting broad leaves trees so the wild animals feed on them rather than running to the fields.

The culling of Monkeys :

As there is no progress on this front on the part of the government, the farmer are being forced to take the guns in their hands to secure the their crops. As per the information the culling of monkeys has started in two Panchayats namely Neri and Dummi of the Shimla district. In these Panchayats 61 farmers had applied before the forest department to allow them to start culling of monkeys and out of which a dozen of the farmers has been granted the permission to go ahead. If all goes well the

same could also be replicated in other areas of the Himachal where farming community is facing acute problem of the wild animals.

In 2007 the farmers of the Nauradhar subtehsil of Sirmour district, with the help of the forest deparment, for the first time in the state, started a culling operation of the monkeys and more than five hundred monkeys were killed. After the intervention of the animal rights organizations, especially from Menika Gandhi ,the government withdrew itself from this move and farmers could not continue this campaign and they eventually stopped this .This culling operation had a very positive effect and monkeys fled from this areas which otherwise was one of the worst monkeys affected part of the state. It was after this operation, the farmers of these areas first time in the past 30 years could grow crop of maze

The kheti bachao Sangharsh Samiti of Himachal Pradesh is leading the peasants movement in the state to force the government to take effective measures to rein in the wild animals and devise short, medium and long term plans.The Samiti has decided to organize a rally of the state farmers during the general budget in Delhi next year.