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| Edited By: Nikhil Ghanekar |Source: DNA |Updated: Dec 05, 2017, 01:56 PM IST
The Vanishing is a deeply personal account of the troubled state of India's wildlife, seen through the eyes of its author, wildlife conservationist and journalist Prerna Singh Bindra.
In the prologue, Bindra looks back on her childhood and recalls with fondness, that it was not the promise of sighting mega fauna in the wild but spending time with the odd bird in her backyard in Jamnagar, Gujarat, that drew her to the wilderness. She dwells on this memory, adding grimly that the birds and bees have all but disappeared from our backyards.
This is the here and now of the Sixth Extinction, she warns, referring to the disappearance of plant and animal species as a result of human activity. This forms the premise of her book - over 12 chapters, Bindra elaborates on the wave of modern extinction with stories of the Great Indian Bustard, leopards, Olive Ridley turtles and tigers. In the process, she looks at government decisions that have had an adverse impact on endangered wildlife and ecologically sensitive forests.
Bindra must be credited for exposing in great detail what a sham the process of getting environmental clearances for projects in protected wildlife areas usually is. The author served as non officio member of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) for three years and was privy to the myriad ways in which private companies, corporate houses and bureaucrats connive to rob forests in the name of 'development'. In one case, Bindra narrates, NBWL members visited the site of a proposed power project and found that work had already started though the matter was sub judice and being examined in the Supreme Court. This chapter, called 'India's Notional Board for Wildlife', stands out among the others.
Detailing the vague and arbitrary administrative procedures, Bindra does a good job of deconstructing the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government's utter disregard for environmental regulations. She does not spare the earlier United Progressive Alliance government, too, and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh for allowing ecologically damaging projects in tiger and elephant habitats.
The book also does well to flag the often under-reported threats posed by linear infrastructure - roads, electric power lines, railway lines, etc - to wildlife and forests. Bindra makes a passionate argument for leaving critical wildlife areas undisturbed so that wildlife inside and around forests can move about freely.
Bindra combines deeply felt personal conviction and journalistic objectivity in her narrative of the loss of wildlife and their habitat. While the personal tone makes her account of certain incidents moving and relatable, it also makes the book uneven in its commentary, giving it a moralistic tone and tenor. The absence of a certain level of detachment leads to a blurring of the bigger picture. This is manifested in the paucity of human stories, especially ones about the tribal communities which interact closely with wildlife. It also results in a near-total absence of a perspective about the nee for development in regions that are still inaccessible and remain poor and backward.
Despite such omissions and flaws, the importance of the subject at hand and the author's fluid narrative style make it worth a read.
