Field Diaries: September 2007

Bangalore - About the survey

The survey was about getting two types of information - tiger and prey distribution in a forest and assessment of human impacts inside the forest. So we identify a trail in the interiors of a forested area and start walking, typically two team members and a guide who is familiar with the route. We look out for signs of animals - tracks, scat etc and also lookout for human impacts - grazing, fire, timber extraction etc. On encountering any of these, we identify the animal or the impact and take readings. End of walk - complete all data sheets and transfer GPS information into the laptop.

Finding a carnivore scat on the track was always a good sign - the presence of carnivores speaks a lot about the health of the forest. It means that the forest is productive and if better protection is provided, it has the potential of sustaining carnivore population. Which automatically means that all the other denizens of the forest can also thrive. On one of our walks - it was a dusty track - my team mate identified a pug mark. And from then on we kept seeing those tracks every few meters almost till the end of our walk. We also got scrape marks and fresh scat on the track. We could hear the rumblings of a herd of wild elephants not very far - our guides got fidgety and hurried us along. It was an exciting walk. On another walk my teammate and I saw fresh leopard scrape with scent which was still wet on the ground. We got it twice more on the same track a few hundred meters further on. These encounters, though exciting, were rare. Most of the time, even a seemingly undisturbed forest would offer very few signs of animals. Signs of course depend on other factors as well - a leafy substrate does not offer many signs and rain washes away all tracks. But generally speaking, a forest where human impacts are less, animal signs are more. Which means a forest with less disturbance has higher probability of sustaining healthy animal populations.

So this was about the survey in brief. The other posts here are notes from a diary I started keeping when I was in the forest. I didn't have signal on my phone most of the time - so back from the walk and nothing to do, I started writing - this is more like a loose account of the day's walk, and some random thoughts at the end of the day. :)

Signs of human disturbance - Firewood Collection

Pole Cutting

Fire - vast patches grasslands burnt and along with it life in the understory

A rare reward!

Collecting scat sample

Hyderabad - May 06

So, camp's over. I am in Hyderabad now, being pampered. Which means, being fed. And for once, I am enjoying it. The last few days in Bangalore were a whirl wind and I hardly remember anything much. Getting off at Majestic, taking an auto home. I suddenly had this craving for food...good food...it was as if I hadn't eaten for months. There were no provisions at home so I went to the next door Pizza Hut for a bite...got a bill of 200 something...from 12 Rupee full fledged meals to a whopping 200 Rupee snack...welcome to the city! :)

So back in Hyd...I am thinking about the camp. It was a good camp. A unique experience. I am missing the walks, the routine. What I am NOT missing is the heat and the grime. It's nice to be back - good food, comfortable bed. I miss the sound of birds though. Every morning I would wake up, often without the alarm to the sound of birds. In Thalacauvery, it was the Jungle Fowl and the long drawn, sweet, idle whistling of the Malabar Whistling Thrush, along with a variety of other bird songs, big and small. It was like waking up to a celebration - celebration of a new day. Quite similar was the scene in all the other places, except for the IB in Sakleshpur. I suppose being bang on such a busy highway, it wasn't a preferred bird habitat, though there were forests and trees all over - right behind it, across the highway on the other side. Says something about the disturbance these roads and highways through the forest cause, doesn't it? Birds, in general, avoid places of heavy human activity. Similar argument can be extended to animals as well. Back in the city, all I hear is the sound of traffic...buses, scooters, cars. It is disquieting. I'll get used to it soon. Which in a way is more disquieting. Hmmm....

So the camp offered opportunities of some really good birding. I am thrilled with the birds I saw in the forests and near the guest houses. Similarly the walks were a good initiation into understanding the delicate balance of nature - forests and animals. I have just about begun to observe, understand, co-relate, and make inferences. Also apparent in the walks was the impact of human disturbance in the forest - fuelwood and NTFP collection, timber extraction, livestock grazing, poaching. The forests which have high human disturbance are degraded and have low signs of wildlife - which in turn leads to further degradation. It's a cycle.

Forests that have good signs of wildlife, in addition to less human interference, are generally better protected by the forest staff. The forest staff in most cases is generally handicapped and gets a beating from all sides. In the cities we have an opinion that the forest department is generally apathetic, languid and demotivated, corruption ruling the ranks. The ground reality is different. There is always a lack of funds, which means low(and often late) salaries and poor infrastructure. So even where there is a will to maintain, to protect, it is severely inhibited by a lack of support. The poachers on the other hand, the timber mafia, the big plantation owners, the developers with those big development projects have big money, and big politicians in their pockets. If the forest department becomes strict with the peripheral villages for example, with respect to livestock grazing in the core forest areas or NTFP collection, the villagers get antagonistic, sometimes even violent. Villagers ganging up against the forest staff are common. The forest staff has no backing. It's highly political, everything, and it's all about money. And yet, in such circumstances also, there are so many of these men in khaki, from watchers to guards to rangers, who are battling all odds and trying to work with sincerity to protect the last remaining patches of our forests, our carbon sinks and fresh water sources.

Since I am suddenly on this remembrance drive, I'd stop by and remember the people I met in the course of all our walks. People in plantations, villagers, forest watchers and guards - most of them were warm and helpful. And most of them were really very poor. Just want to quote P. Sainath's Ramon Magsaysay Award acceptance speech which came in the papers a couple of days back:

In nearly 14 years of reporting India's villages full time, I have felt honoured and humbled by the generosity of some of the poorest people in the world. People who constantly bring home to you the Mahatma's great line: 'Live simply, that others may simply live.' But a people we today sideline and marginalise in the path of development we now pursue. A people in distress, even despair, who still manage to awe me with their human and humane values. On their behalf too, I accept the Ramon Magsaysay award.

Mudigere - April 30

My last walk. I suppose I was busy winding up and packing up that night that I didn't really get time to write in my diary. Looking through the pictures, don't think there was anything spectacular about the walk that day. We were walking in the same part of the forest where we had walked the previous day - just taking a different route. Since it had rained so heavily the other night, everything, whatever little tracks were there on the forest floor were all washed away. Fresh leaves and branches covered the forest floor, a reminder of the storm of the previous evening. There were signs of human disturbance everywhere - firewood collection, timber felling, encroachment of forest land and so on. I remember Kamal and I waited at the bus stop for a long time to be picked up. I started filling up my data sheets. After a while I realised I have an audience - 4 or 5 children from the village peeking inside, trying to make sense of what I was doing. We chatted as we waited...I was aware my last walk was done, tomorrow morning as everybody else would be studying the maps and marking the routes and going about their walks, I would be sitting in a bus to Bangalore.

Last walk

Signs of timber extraction

Probably a water snake

Walk to the bus stop

The bus stop - waiting to be picked up

Mudigere - April 29

So that day I did sleep out in the veranda. It was cool, a different experience! Just that the sound and light from the lorries made life a little uncomfortable. It became cool sometime around midnight and I passed into sleep. It's beautiful to spread out your sleeping bag anywhere under the sky and to just sleep.

We moved to this place last evening. Looks like a place in shambles - abandoned forest quarters - and I swear - no electricity, no running water this time. The water has to be fetched 100 meters away from a nursery hose. Anyway, quite used to 'no electricity' part, and also used to 'fetching water' for bath and toilet use, so this seems not very difficult. And interestingly, my cell phone shows 5 bars here! Full signal! I cannot recall when I had signal last. I took a bath outside - near the nursery behind an abandoned structure - in the dark. Was a bit apprehensive about the whole process so just got going full speed and was done before I knew it. Nobody comes that way I know. But it was in the open and I was uncomfortable. Anyway, it was cool and refreshing after the day's walk. It was a short and easy walk yesterday. Weather's playing friends so the sun was nice and gentle and didn't beat down on us with unrelenting fury. It was after the walk that we arrived at these quarters.

Today: My last but one walk. My last but one night as a part of this camp. I can't believe it, day after tomorrow I'd be heading towards Bangalore. I think Bangalore with it's traffic and people would be a little shocking. I've become used to living in quiet surroundings - often with no electricity or running water - with an odd bunch of people I call my teammates - Bangalore, city life, back to comfort and family, home, would kind of feel strange. At least in the beginning. Well, well, well....

I had grapefruit today, fresh from the farm. It was quite nice. The plantation owners knew the senior forest guard well. So courtesy him, we were treated very well. Fresh grapefruit, majjige, bananas...On our way back - dark clouds started gathering and it suddenly poured down. There was a storm and really heavy downpour accompanied by hail. I could see big branches falling off trees on both sides as we sped through the teak plantations. A huge bamboo cluster had fallen onto the road blocking it completely, so we had to stop and wait for the rain to subside. A forest rain-drenched, looks fresh and rejuvenated - nothing can beat the green of the forest at this time - it looks so beautiful.

What do we do now...wait, turn back, find an alternate way? Searching beneath the seats we found an axe, our field assistant keeps it there for emergency, and I could now understand why. So when the rain subsided a little, P and our guide jumped out and started clearing away the fallen branches. P started axing the bamboo, the guide and I cleared as many fronds, branches off the road as we could. It was still raining - we got drenched but managed to clear half the road so the vehicle could pass by, and it did! Our joy at clearing this obstacle and moving ahead got dampened when just a few hundred meters ahead there was this huge teak tree that had fallen on the road. There was no way we could clear this one...it would take a few hours and it was already evening. So we turned back and took a detour into a mud road(between the first road block and the second). Our guide luckily knew the area well and on his hunch we continued on this muddy track which led us through some plantations and forests and finally after an hour(and a few other roadblocks)brought us onto a main road again. It was while clearing one of these fallen trees which probably had an ant's nest on it, and which unfortunately in a hurry and in the rain I didn't quite see, I got some nasty bites on my hands which were to itch and pain long after the camp was over.