GUWAHATI, April 5 ? Queen of elephants Parbati Barua is very sad today. For, the once tender - hearted people of her native State Assam have become intolerant towards the wild elephants. They even do not bother today to poison these majestic animals to death. Fourty seven-year-old, Smt Barua, a descendant of the Gauripur Jamindars and daughter of the legendary elephant expert Late Prakritesh Chandra Barua (Lalji), who has spent almost entire of her life with the elephants and known among the wildlife experts all over the world as the only woman elephant catcher in the world, said, while talking to The Assam Tribune here, that such cruelty towards the wild animals was not our heritage. ?I wonder, ? whither Assam?, she said. Smt Barua is also a member of the Asian Elephants Specialists Group of the IUCN.
Elephants serve as the thermometer for measuring the health of forest and ecology of a region. No elephant means no forest, which in turn means draught, floods and also famine and all sorts of natural disasters. This in turn means disaster for the people of the region, their civilisation, their culture and all that they stand for, she said, adding, ? ?I can not imagine an Assam/NE region minus the elephant from its social life?. ?Nowhere in the country, we find so many folklores and folk songs that are connected with elephants, barring the NE region?, she said emphatically.
Commenting on the factors contributing to the man-elephant conflict, she said that many factors like the loss of habitats and biotic pressure, are responsible for this. However, biotic pressure like encroachment etc play major roles in this regard. She also refused to subscribe to the view that a recent rise in the elephant population due to the ban on elephant catching in the country, also plays a major role in triggering the man-elephant conflict, as unfounded. For, she said, according to elephant census reports, there were about 28,000 elephants in India in 2001. Of these, 33 per cent belonged to the NE region. In 1997, there were 5,312 elephants in Assam, but, the State had an elephant population of 5,524 in 1993. So, there was a decrease in the number of elephants in the State in 1997.
The report of the 2002 elephant census in the State is awaited. Without a proper census, no one should claim that elephant population in Assam or in the NE is swelling, she said assertively. Continuing, she said, ?We should also keep in our mind the facts that poaching of elephants for meat and ivory is very much in vogue in the NE region. There are also the cases of unreported killing, railway accidents etc., poisoning of elephants in the region. About 20 per cent of the cases of poaching of tuskers for ivory in India is reported from NE India. This is the official version, many more such cases go undetected, she said.
Moreover, the NE region also accounts for 90 per cent of the cases of poisoning of elephants in the country. About 30 per cent of the electrocution of elephants and about 60 per cent of the elephants being run over by trains, belong to the NE region, as per the official records of such cases in the country, she said. For this sorry state of affairs, she said that the political policy makers are to be blamed first of all. The bureaucracy comes next to them and then come the greedy lot of our people. The degeneration in our sense of cultural values and the influx of the foreign nationals have also been aggravating the situation, she said.
This situation should be changed, our society and the Government should join hands for evolving an appropriate strategy and drawing up suitable plans for elephant management ? both wild and domesticated elephants, Smt Barua said. Our traditional ethos should also be reinstilled among ourselves so as to build up a social resistance to all the degenerated behaviour towards the wildlife. For that purpose, a massive awareness campaign for conservation of forest and the wildlife by the wildlife lovers and the media should be undertaken. As part of our curriculum, environment education should also be introduced as a compulsory subject upto the HSLC standard. Our school curriculum should also include the subjects like geography, history and our culture. Or else, we are facing a danger of turning our young generations into upstarts, she said.
Besides, firm steps like conviction, fine etc against those who take recourse to cruelty to animals may also create an atmosphere for awareness on animal-related issue. There are two Acts ? Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and Wildlife Act, provisions of which may be implemented, along with the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act, strictly, to improve the situation, she said, regretting that despite such laws existing in the country the executive has been providing the loopholes to the law breakers, may be because of its leniency. ?I still believe that our people have not ceased to take pride in our heritage and culture. Elephant is safe as long as this sense of pride continues to reign over our souls?, she said.