Dr Russell Mittermeier lectures in India

[Guest guest]

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

 

Nov 25, 2006

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEO20061125000926 & Page=O & Title=Thiru\

vananthapuram & Topic=0

'India

can be a success story in conservation'

Saturday November 25 2006 10:30 IST

 

T'PURAM: Russell A Mittermeier, an eminent wildlife conservationist and

president of Conservation International, was in the city to give a lecture

as part of the Science, Technology and Informatics lecture series organised

by the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management- Kerala.

 

*This website's newspaper* caught up with him for an exclusive interview. n

You have always maintained that biodiversity destruction is the worst

environmental problem as it is irreversible loss. How bad is it in India?

India is interesting in that the country has most of what it originally had.

 

You have just one-third the area of China and yet you have wildlife

everywhere, even in human-dominated areas. In China, it is hard to even find

a bird in the urban areas. India is well-positioned to be a success story in

conservation. n India has a National Biodiversity Board and many states have

their own biodiversity boards.

 

But the problem they face is with the enforcement. Do we need to go in for a

special police force such as the cyber-police to monitor this? We need

special enforcement agencies, but most important is to create an awareness

among the local communities.

 

There has to be an active participation from the local people for effective

conservation programmes. In Costa Rica, an experiment that introduced a

compensation package for the local community resulted in an increase of

forest-cover.

 

In 1999, *Time Magazine* named you as the 'Eco-hero of the Planet'. On

Friday, if you are asked to name a person for the same, whom would you

suggest? There are so many people who have done a lot - some are famous,

some are little known. But the first name that comes to my mind is George

Schaller who has done tremendous work for conservation of lions, pandas,

elephants, tigers and so on. He is 75 and is based in New York.

 

He is one of my heroes. n Was it Schaller who inspired you to take up

biodiversity conservation as a career? Actually, it was Tarzan comics which

inspired me. Then my mother. Right from the time I was a kid, she would take

me to zoos and the American Museum of National History. n Among the numerous

studies done by Conservation International, did you come across any

interesting results? Yes. We once did a study on language diversity and

biodiversity. Of the 6,912 languages spoken all over the world, half of them

— 3,475 — are found in biological hotspots.

 

Another 1,617 are found in high biodiversity areas. n Amphibians are a

category that is being wiped out at an alarmingly fast rate from all parts

of the world. Nearly 90 percent of them are in the endangered list or in the

critical list. Do you think we should take them off the dissection table in

schools and resort to computer simulation? When I was in the sixth grade, I

was horrified when I had to kill a frog. But unless it causes a decline of

the species, we need not be overly worried. For a student who is interested

in anatomy, I guess it cannot be avoided. But in other cases, computer

simulation would be enough.

 

You are a well-known primatologist and a herpatologist with a doctorate in

biological anthropology. But you have a passion for non-human primates.

Which is your favourite primate? Indri, the largest lemur in Madagascar. I

also like the Lion Tamarin from Brazil. And, of course, the lion-tailed

macaque, which is one reason for me being here. The last time I came here in

1979, I was unsuccessful in my attempts to see the monkey. This time around,

I saw four groups a couple of days ago.