According to Ullas Karanth, wild animals have dominated his consciousness ever since he can remember. His father, a well-known Kannada writer, was not only deeply interested in the natural world himself, but also lacked faith in formal education of any kind. So, until he joined high school directly at the age of 11, Karanth was free to wander the woods around their home in rural Karnataka to his heart’s content, picking up natural history skills that would prove vital years later.

Today, Karanth is a renowned wildlife scientist who has spent virtually his entire adult life actively involved in conservation. His training and single-minded dedication, combined with a gift for clear thinking, makes him a formidable voice of reason, and this collection of 13 essays an invaluable contribution to the growing body of literature on India’s wildlife and its conservation. 

Karanth’s metamorphosis from amateur naturalist to wildlife scientist is both unusual and fascinating and is well documented in the first few essays of the book.  After graduating from college he tried his hand at being an Engineer and, later, toiled for several years as a farmer on the outskirts of the Nagarahole forest. Wildlife was a hobby, albeit a serious one.  Then, well into his thirties, he took a radical decision to abandon both vocations and train himself as a wildlife biologist.  This decision was spurred by the conviction that for conservation to succeed it had to be “based on a solid foundation of modern wildlife biology”.  A meeting with a delegation from the Smithsonian at the Bombay Natural History Society’s international wildlife conference in 1983 paved the way for his journey to the United States to pursue a degree in Wildlife Biology.

Since then, it is the study of the tiger that has dominated his life, and he has come to be recognized around the world for his exemplary work on the severely endangered big cat. This fascination with the ultimate predator was probably fuelled in no small measure by the shikar tales that he read as a school student, in particular, the “feverishly gripping” accounts of Kenneth Anderson.  Anderson’s books of high adventure in the south Indian jungles have inspired many an Indian naturalist and Karanth too came under their spell.  He got to know Anderson quite well later, and writes with admiration, affection and humour about the irascible Scot, whose enthralling stories have lost none of their shine to this day.

The first six essays in the book are in the nature of personal reminisces, written in an easy conversational style.  These cover the period up to the beginning of Karanth’s study of predator-prey relationships in Nagarahole, Karnataka, in the mid-80s, and include a chapter on his close friend of nearly four decades, the courageous and steadfast Forest Range Officer, K.M.Chinnappa.  The two first met in Nagarahole in the late 60s and found common ground in their passion for watching animals rather than hunting them. 

Under Chinnappa’s diligent and tough stewardship, the Nagarahole that Karanth had come to know, with it’s large-scale logging and rampant poaching, gradually underwent a miraculous transformation, turning into one of Asia’s finest wildlife reserves.  It was undoubtedly this transformation that made Karanth’s pioneering research here so productive for over two decades.

While the book’s first five chapters are engaging and informative, its true worth lies in its latter eight. Karanth’s incisive intellect is at work here, and he provides us with rare insights into the world of tigers, helping to dispel the fog of confusion that seems to enshroud their conservation.  These essays do demand more from the reader, but they are, in my opinion, essential reading for every serious naturalist and conservationist. 

Almost throughout the book Karanth highlights the need for science in conservation and decries the ‘science deficiency’ that extends to almost every aspect of wildlife management in India including, importantly, the monitoring of tigers.  In the chapter ‘The many ways to count a cat’ he demolishes fundamentally faulty “home-grown” methods of monitoring wildlife populations, such as ‘waterhole census’, ‘block census’ and ‘pugmark census’, which have gained widespread acceptance because they have gone unchallenged for too long. This “pseudo-data”, according to him, then enters the public domain without going through the scientific process of peer review and publication.  The result of this, he says, is that reliable, scientifically proven methods are ignored.

Wildlife conservation, he asserts, is no different in many ways to running a large and complex business enterprise. In this enterprise it is imperative that wildlife scientists be the accountants and auditors.  While recognizing that “old-style natural history and field craft – the domain of traditional hunters, collectors and naturalists – still forms the backbone of modern wildlife biology” he points out that this is only valuable when brought under the framework of science.  He warns that without scientifically accurate methods to measure the effectiveness of our actions, our efforts are “ bound to flounder, much like a business enterprise that carries on without ever drawing up a balance sheet”.

The last two chapters of the book are devoted to a discussion of the larger questions confronting conservation in India today.  How do we define wildlife conservation? Why should we try to conserve wildlife?  In these chapters Karanth argues against the “newly fashioned paradigm of ‘sustainable use’” whose proponents advocate “wise use’ of nature reserves by ‘local people”.  He cites a world-wide study of wildlife hunting that concluded that most local hunting in tropical forest areas, either for the pot or for markets, is unsustainable because it is occurring at intensities way above the productivity of the targeted animal populations.  

Karanth is one of the most lucid and pragmatic voices in wildlife conservation today and, in this deceptively small book, he articulates a strong case for more science in conservation. The book’s discrete chapters are extremely useful because I can see readers wanting to delve into some of the essays again and again. This is an important book that has come at a time when the tiger’s domain is besieged by numerous problems, and needs to be read by everyone who is concerned about the conservation of this “fragile predator”. 

Shekar Dattatri
(The reviewer is a wildlife and conservation filmmaker)

Honey Trails in the Blue Mountains:
Keystone Foundation
Post Box 35, Groves Hill Road
Kotagiri – 643217. Rs.395.

Having evolved over millions of years, the Western Ghats are a treasure trove of biodiversity, and have been recognized as an ecological ‘hot spot’ of global significance.  The altitudinal gradient of the mountains, combined with their orientation to the monsoons, has led to the evolution of a wide variety of interconnected ecosystems that range from scrub jungle in the rain shadow regions to moist evergreen forests on the rain drenched slopes and, at the very top, montane shola forests nestled in the folds of undulating grasslands.   This varied habitat mosaic is home to over 4000 plant species, and an extraordinary variety of creatures great and small, including elephant, tiger, Nilgiri tahr and lion tailed macaque. It is also home to many indigenous adivasi communities, who lived in traditional equilibrium with the land until the influx of hundreds of thousands of people from the plains during the last few decades. 

The adivasis now eke out a living as daily labour on estates and plantations, and by collecting Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) for supply to markets.  One of the most important NTFPs from the hill forests is honey, with which virtually all the indigenous communities here have deep-rooted cultural connections.  ‘Honey Trails in the Blue Mountains’ chronicles these connections, whilst providing us with a larger picture of the region.

A labour of love

Since 1995, Keystone Foundation, a Non Governmental Organization, has been working with the adivasi communities in the Nilgiris to document their traditional knowledge, particularly, of bees and honey.  The book under review is, according to the authors, the result of three years of work on their ‘Honey Hunters of the Western Ghats’ Programme, which was supported by the IUCN – Netherlands Committee.  The data collected, and insights gathered, during this period have been compiled into a valuable reference book for all those who are interested in the ecology, anthropology and land use of this region.  The book focuses its attention on the 5520 sq. km. block of landscape known as the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR), which straddles the three south India states of Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka.

The book is divided into two sections and is illustrated with colour and black and white photographs, maps and line drawings.  The first section gives a broad overview of the Biosphere Reserve, including its ecology, people, NTFPs and livelihood issues.  The second section delves into each of the nine eco-regions that make up the NBR, and provides an analysis of their ecology, economy and land use patterns.  The chapters contain interesting and useful nuggets of information in the form of many tables that provide details of NTFPs collected, major honey zones in the Nilgiris and major nesting trees for bees.  There are also numerous boxes that recount adivasi lore and go into a bit of extra detail about the honey collection practices of particular tribes.  Six annexures at the end provide information on a range of subjects, including geology and soils, endemic species and forest classification.  However, an index would have been useful, as also, captions for all the photographs. The legends and place names on some of the maps are so tiny as to be unreadable and this needs fixing.  Hopefully, these minor problems will be rectified in the next edition.

Fresh impetus needed

Designated as a Biosphere Reserve in 1986 under the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme, the goal of the NBR is to conserve genetic diversity of species, restore degraded ecosystems to their natural conditions, provide baseline data for ecological and environmental research and education, and function as an alternative model for sustainable development.  Sadly, lacking collective vision on the part of the three states, little has happened in the last two decades to further these objectives.  This book will hopefully provide a fresh impetus to meet these objectives, as it brings together varied streams of information into one handy volume, and could serve as a launch pad for further investigation and action. ‘Honey Trails in the Blue Mountains’ is an important work that deserves to be read widely, particularly, by decision makers, and all those who have a role to play in the NBR.