Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Human-Wildlife Conflict, it is real! (An unusual appeal: a story)



“Please, give us nothing but only a tiger if you can if not a leopard,” was an appeal of a peasant from a remote hamlet of Bhutan to his visiting MP.

That MP was quite taken aback by such an unusual appeal. At one point, the MP thought that the man was insane and wanted to laugh but nobody was laughing in the gathering. The MP went dumb founded when the whole people of the hamlet unanimously repeated the appeal. “As of now we need no developments in any area but just a tiger if not a leopard by any means please,” pleaded the people in unison.

Stupefied MP, for a while did not know what to do or say. Hesitantly the MP began to speak after clearing his throat although it was already clear. “What actually you people mean by mentioning tiger or a leopard?”

After a deep sigh, an elderly man began to speak, “It is a very long and a sad story to narrate sir.”

“Once many years ago, the village was beautiful, peaceful, and prosperous. People were happy and the harvest every year was bountiful.  The domestic animals were many and helped the village people in many respect.

Bordering the village was a deep and beautiful jungle were many wild animals roamed happily. There was peace in the village and harmony in the jungle.

One fateful day a young man returned home from town with a monster machine called Power Chain. People gathered around the machine and asked the owner a string of questions. The man, for fun ignited the engine, which sent all the people running halter skater in terror. The man had a hearty laugh, called his village folk back after stopping the engine, and explained how it worked and what it did.

Soon people fell in love with the machine and began cutting down the great old trees in the jungle to construct their traditional house.

We never realized what we were doing until one day a teacher came to the village to educate our children.

The teacher was very worried by the way we exploited the jungle. The teacher told us that we have encroached upon the home of the wild. But we gave no heed and went on destroying the jungle.

One day a tiger came right into the middle of our village and killed the biggest bull. The people were so infuriated that they poisoned the tiger and celebrated the death of the big cat.

Soon the village began to face the leopards. The villagers killed the last one, a year ago in a trap.

Since then we are not in peace. We have to guard their crops day and night. Despite all the earnest efforts, we lost all our crops to the wild animals.

The human wild life conflict was so severe that we cursed our fate and resorted to so many prayers and rituals but to no avail.

During one of the teacher-parents meetings, the teacher of the village solved the puzzle we were faced with.

He explained that we have destroyed the home of the animals and slowly the animals went away or died. The tigers and leopards attacked the domestic animals because there was no food for them in the jungle. Killing the cats was the greatest mistake pointed out by the teacher. This according to the teacher had created an imbalance in the food chain.

The wild boar, deer, and monkey’s population dramatically increased hence the crop loss. There were no animals that could hunt and control the population of the boars and deer.”

The teacher opened the eyes of the villagers and they revered the teacher more than they revered their chief monk in the village. All the people realized their follies very well after the teacher explained how the nature worked.

The teacher talked about this predicament faced by the people while he was talking about one of the pillars of the Gross National Happiness: Conservation and Preservation of natural environment. Citing the real problems faced by the villagers the teacher highlighted the importance of preserving and conserving our natural environment.

After listening to the story, the MP was agitated and at the same time impressed with the wisdom of the teacher.  

Stroking his chin the Mp began to speak, “I fully understand your troubles and shall surely look into your problems and inform you what has to be done as soon as possible.”

The PM was never to be seen in the village again.

 

 

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