Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Aug 31, 2012
On Sunday, September 2, 2013, a GreenKarbon team from Deutsche Bank and Sanctuary Asia, undertook a study trek in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park where the Director of the Park, Mr. Limaye, began by explaining that along with the scores of other problems, this city forest was being choked by plastic being thrown by careless
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Jul 21, 2012
The news came in three days ago about the Supreme Court of India banning tourism in the core areas of national parks and sanctuaries in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed. While everyone waits for the text of the final ruling, clearly this is a case where the law has confused the current impact of tourism (negative)
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
May 24, 2012
Its bad enough that India's economists are doing a terrible job of managing our fragile nation. Its worse that they are trying to cover their inefficiencies by plundering our ecological vaults (exporting cheap coal to China from under critically important forests, including our Tiger Reserves). This will end up by turning India
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
May 05, 2012
I wrote this piece in my GreenTalk column that used to be published in the Deccan Herald, Bangalore's leading news paper in 2003. The 'Vanishing Wildlife' I wrote about is vanishing even faster today.
Virtually nowhere in India is our wildlife truly safe. Our national parks and sanctuaries provide some very welcome respite for
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
May 05, 2012
This is a letter I wrote as long as 15 years ago, on July 11, 1997, to Mr. I.K. Gujral, who was then India's Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Indian Board for Wildlife.
I could write almost the exact words today to Dr. Manmohan Singh and they would remain valid.
No action was taken then. Little has been learned since.
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
May 03, 2012
Check out this url: http://vimeo.com/38211597
NGOs working with the Karnataka Forest Department removed over 100 wire snares from Bandipur-Nagarhole using the simplest of devices... a magnet attached to a stick to find the snares.
What a solid initiative. It is time that such quiet work was taken up by more individuals and
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Jul 13, 2011
There is precious little real on-the-ground cooperation between India and Bangladesh on the issue of climate change and the management of the largest mangrove forest in the world -- the Sundarbans.
We know, of course, that the Indian Sundarbans has better WILDLIFE management and enforcement than the Bangladesh side. And that
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Jun 20, 2011
Today was a very special day for me. I met with 80 pre-primary children from West Wind School, Mumbai. My message to them? Nature is your best friend and will look after you forever, but you must also look after Mother Nature and not hurt her in any way. We spoke about the tiger, about whale sharks, the oceans, the high
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Jun 07, 2011
Mysore put elephants on the front pages of newspaper and in the headlines of television news yesterday. Check this out to understand the trauma to both humans and the elephants.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/wild-elephants-on-rampage-in-mysore-city-one-killed-110859
But its like this. Elephants need space to survive. If we
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Jun 01, 2011
The Sanctuary Cover Story June 2011 explores whether and how we can negotiate a path by availing of the immense potential of tourism to educate, conserve and offer employment, YET avoid the minefield of misuse and abuse that afflicts many of our finest wildernesses. And in the process can we ensure that wild species and the people who live next to them become primary beneficiaries of tourism? Can wildlife tourism physically enhance the quality and quantum of habitat available to wild species? People have grappled with this issue for over a century, but few people put the issue in better perspective than Aldo Leopold, the famous American naturalist, who opined that, "The problem with wildlife management is not how we handle the deer - the real problem is one of human management."
