Wildlife: Politics, Science and Conservation

Wildlife conservation in this country takes place in a politically charged atmosphere. We have worked in Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks to document the nature of such politics as well as the scientific debates over the best means of improving wildlife conservation. Turf Wars was filmed in the Great Himalayan National Park, in Himachal Pradesh.

B. R. Hills [Work in Progress]

Client / Financial Support: Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment

The Billigary Rangan Temple Wildlife Sanctuary is part of the BR Hills in Karnataka, one of the lesser known wildlife sanctuaries in the country. The Sanctuary has much of the large mammal fauna that is found in most parts of peninsular India - elephant, gaur, chital, sambar, sloth bear, tiger. It also has a large tribal population that has been extracting a variety of resources from these forests, including honey from wild bee combs, amla and other NTFPs. An impressive history of ecological and socio-economic research has been conducted in the BR Hills Sanctuary over the past decade.

Based on discussions between foresters, scientists of various persuasions and the Soliga tribals, we examine key issues related to Soliga use of the forests, including the role of forest fires started by the Soligas in facilitating or inhibiting Amla regeneration; the effectiveness of LAMPS, the cooperative society that markets produce extracted by the Soliga, and the place of research in management of areas such as the BR Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Final Frontier (2003)

Client: Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment
Duration: 20 mts.

This short film is a general exploration of the importance of protected areas in conserving biological diversity. It takes the viewer through some of India's most spectacular landscapes. Through the use of interviews with some of India's best known conservationists, the film argues that protected areas are critical for the survival of Indian wilderness. These areas, however, are under constant threat from industry and big development. Equally important, local dependence on forest resources can potentially pose a threat to these areas.

The successful conservation of these areas will depend on our ability to counter vested commercial interests as well as ensure that India's rural poor derive some of the benefits of conservation, not just the heavy costs of exclusion.

Turf Wars: Conservation Claims in the Great Himalayan National Park (2001)

Client: Department of International Development (DFID, India)
Duration: 39 mts.

In 1999, the Great Himalayan National Park, in the Kullu Valley of the state of Himachal Pradesh, in northern India, was finally notified and brought under the regulations of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. As a result, local rights to graze animals and extract medicinal herbs within the national park were terminated. Simultaneously, however, a part of the park was deleted from the originally demarcated boundaries of the park, to enable the construction of a hydro-electric power project. Turf Wars explores the contradictions that seem to characterize the government's policies towards conservation - wherein local livelihoods are expendable in the interests of biodiversity, but biodiversity must make way for national development.

In documenting the many twists and turns of the GHNP story over the past couple of years, Turf Wars engages with a number of debates in conservation: Eco-development as the latest recipe for humanizing exclusionary conservation; the nature of scientific evidence, routinely used to support the notion that humans must be separated from nature; the notion of the "oppressive" state further marginalizing "powerless" communities. It is an open-ended film, one that aims to provoke discussion rather than provide answers to problems that are, inevitably, complex, contested and heavily politicized.

Turf Wars Revisited

Duration: 18 minutes

When the Great Himalayan National Park was notified in 1999, villagers in the Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh in northern India lost their customary rights to graze animals and collect medicinal herbs from the area, posing a grave threat to their livelihood practices. A 10 km tract of National Park territory -prime wildlife habitat- was, however, denotified to allow for the construction of the Parvati Hydro-Electric Project. Contradictions were apparent in the Government's attitude - that livelihoods could be compromised in the interests of conservation, but the latter had to bow down before the pressures of development.

Turf Wars Revisited attempts to collate perceptions towards the National Park and the Parvati Project, five years after their establishment in the Kullu Valley.