Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
185.2 million (Report 2003a), the largest in the world. Many of the native cattle are not classifi ed
under any specifi c breed, and do not offer a high milk yield. Many also live on the forest fringes,
competing for pasture with wild animals. This then leads to human-wildlife confl icts, which tends to
culminate in a number of tragic outcomes, including wild animal poisoning.
India has an agriculture-based economy. Its gross domestic product (GDP) from agriculture and
its allied sectors constitutes 19% of India's total economy (Report 2008a). The burgeoning popula-
tion necessitates suffi cient food production by the agricultural sector. However, the high temperature
and humidity that is associated with a tropical country promotes the rapid multiplication of pests
including insects, nematodes and fungi, which ultimately take a heavy toll on agricultural produc-
tion. Thus, pest management is essential and chemical pesticides play an important role in increas-
ing agricultural yields. After China, India ranks second in Asia, and twelfth in the world in terms of
pesticide production (Mukherjee, Borad and Asnani 2006).
Among the pesticides used in India, insecticides account for 80%, followed by herbicides and
fungicides (Abhilash and Singh 2009). This is in striking contrast to the global scenario, where
herbicides account for the major usage followed by insecticides and fungicides (Abhilash and Singh
2009). Among the insecticides in use, organophosphorus compounds (OPC) have now overtaken
the organochlorines (Gupta 2006). Carbamates and pyrethroids are used against pests that have
developed resistance to OPCs. Among the carbamates, carbofuran is widely used either alone or in
combination with the OPC phorate for most crops during sowing/planting. It has been listed among
the pesticides most commonly used in India (Abhilash and Singh 2009).
As indicated by our colleagues in other parts of this topic, pesticides have also been commonly
used to poison wild animals in India. Poisoning is perceived as an easy way for people to rid them-
selves of troublesome animals, especially wildlife, without drawing too much attention to themselves.
Numerous factors, including the type of agriculture conducted, public knowledge regarding toxic-
ity of a specifi c product, cost, availability in the local market place and physical properties such as
colour, taste and odour all determine the extent to which specifi c pesticides are used to deliberately
poison animals. The fact that carbofuran (widely used as an insecticide/nematicide) is known to be
highly toxic, is readily available in concentrated formulations, and is almost completely lacking in
odour and taste automatically makes it a strong contender for selection as a poison (Gupta 1994;
Elliott, Langelier, Mineau et al. 1996; Tataruch, Steinick and Frey 1998; Motas-Guzman, Marla-
Mojica, Romero et al. 2003; Kwon, Wee and Kim 2002; Martinez-Haro, Mateo, Guitart et al. 2008).
4.2 Conservation measures and human-wildlife confl icts
India has been a pioneer in terms of the conservation of wildlife through the formation of sanctuaries.
The Central Board for Wildlife was set up in India in 1952 and Project Tiger, launched in 1973 by the
then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, helped establish such areas and resulted in nine wilderness areas
being set aside for tigers. A National Wildlife Action Plan was adopted in 1983 and three types of
Protected Areas (PAs): Wildlife Sanctuaries, National Parks and Biosphere Reserves were created.
As of 2002, there are 578 Protected Areas covering an area of 154 573 square kilometres or 4.70% of
the total area of India (Rodgers, Panwar and Mathur 2002). However, the Protected Areas themselves
are not uniform in size and are distributed unevenly throughout the country. A few of these areas span
thousands of square kilometres, while more than 70% of them are smaller than 200 square kilometres.
It has been suggested that if the same total land mass had been protected but distributed over
fewer protected areas, resident wildlife would have had a better habitat and would have been less
susceptible to human disturbance. The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has now divided the entire
country into ten bio-geographical zones: Trans-Himalaya, Himalaya Desert, Semi-Arid, Western
Ghats, Deccan, Gangetic Plain, Coasts, North East India, and Islands. The distribution of Protected
Areas ranges from 2.20% in the Gangetic Plain to as high as 18.57% in the Islands (Rodgers, Panwar
and Mathur 2002). This uneven distribution, combined with the fact that many areas are both small
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