Indian wildlife deaths on railway tracks: a response

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Posted with permission of the author.

 

 

Trains wrecking havoc on wildlife is a major challenge. My suggestion is:

 

Let us on this e group start documenting such instances in our region

respectively.

To my knowledge there are a few such Railway danger spots across India:

Silguri Kolkatta track, Konkan Railway in Karnataka Goa and Kerala, (maybe

in Maharastra too), Delhi Dehradun track, and this one in Dibrugarh.

 

I suggest wildlife enthusisasts make RTI applications to the respective

railway zones and document the casualties to wildlife because of speeding

trains on tracks that slice through wildlife dense PAs.

 

While the obvious solution would be to lay the tracks circumventing the PAs,

the dilemna perhaps lies in administrative adhocism: PAs are sometimes

notified after the tracks are laid. With the relevant documentation, we as a

group could perhaps move the Supreme Court to counsel the CEC / GOI to

undertake railway track construction only after some kind of an EIA and

exploring all possible feasible / altrenative routes and tracks. Even if it

is not cost effective to divert roads and tracks, it is comparatively less

cost ineffective to manage thge after effects: After all if we lose rear and

endangered species like rhinos, tigers, leopards, etc to speeding vehicles

and trains, the world will be the poorer of the wildlife legacy. And it will

be prohibitively expensive to clone those creatures even at a future date

where cloning technology becomes cheaper than cheap plastic.

 

In a related development, the officials in Karnataka are making efforts to

divert a highway construction to avoid conflict in the Nagarhole National

Park / Tiger Reserve. Conservationists in Karnataka moved courts to reduce

vehicular movement through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve and succeeded only

partially: in stopping vehicular movement through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve

only in the nights.

 

The purpose of all these intellectual initiatives will bear fruit in

activism. Lets make something of an interesting e group like this!

Malini

©

 

 

Malini Shankar

Freelance Environmental Journalist /

Nature Photographer/

Radio and TV Producer

# 1 / 1 Amrutha " Police Station Road

Basavanagudi

Bangalore 560 004

India

 

<shankar.malini