Protecting Big Five flagship species will go a long way: Bombay Natural History Society director Kishor Rithe

Founded on 15 September 1883, the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) spearheaded the nature conservation movement in India. One of the oldest and largest NGOs in India, the 142-year-old BNHS, which is headquartered at the iconic Hornbill House in Mumbai, is involved in multiple projects. A computer engineer by profession and naturalist at heart, BNHS Director Kishor Rithe has spent more than three decades working on the ground, mobilizing students, lobbying officials, and fighting poachers. He has worked with the local communities, academicians, field biologists, media, politicians and administrators and is working with the Central and State governments.  

“Community-based conservation model established in central India in the past two decades has shown that local community and wildlife have no option other than to co-exist in the vast landscapes and corridors, beyond core areas,” Rithe told DH’s Mrityunjay Bose in a free-wheeling interview. 

As BNHS inches towards 150 years of its inception, what are the challenges that India faces?

The BNHS has a rich legacy and has a rich reservoir of experts, who work across India, across subjects, across species. In the last few years, we have taken a lot of measures  and have a share in success stories in nature conservation. Alone, the government and organisations would not be able to push changes. We need support of the people or rather people’s involvement in conservation initiatives. 

You often speak about saving the Big Five to conserve nature. 

Roots of India's success in conservation goes much beyond Project Tiger and Project Elephant. India is a country of 140 crore people with a high population density. Still we could save the Big Five: tigers, elephants, lions, rhinos, leopards. These flagship species have huge geographical areas. When we speak of saving the Tiger, we are not only saving the tiger but the entire flora and fauna associated with tiger landscapes across the country. Same is with elephants, lions, rhinos, leopards. 

But there are several challenges.

Of course, there are challenges. The roots of this success lies in Indian culture of ‘jivo jivasya jeevanam’, meaning, you live and let others also live, which is inculcated by Indian religions. Not only Big Five, but Indian religions have asked the people to protect ants, snakes, trees, water and so on.  Indian tribal communities have been worshiping the jungle since ages. Indian mythology is full of examples. Our community based conservation model established in central India in the past two decades has shown that local community and wildlife have no option other than to co-exists in the vast landscapes and corridors, beyond core areas. 

We have seen the Tiger story but there are challenges. 

India had timely launched the Project Tiger in 1973 and today's increase in tiger number is because of this scheme. However, we still need to go a long way in tiger conservation as we could only provide protection to 50-plus tiger reserves to some extent. Our tiger populations once dispersed outside- in the corridors face the threats of poaching, habitat fragmentation, accidents due to linear infrastructure projects and so on. However, similar success could not be seen in case of elephant conservation in spite of declaring few Elephant reserves. Probably as elephants are the wide ranging animals and they require vast forest landscapes without fragmentation, their population could not increase.  Elephant  Reserves also could not attain the similar legal status and administrative mechanism in Wildlife Protection Act Amendments in 2007 compared to Tiger Reserves. 

What could be the challenges in the years to come?

In the next two decades, our Big Five would face the challenge of habitat fragmentation and thereby the human-wildlife conflict. The stakeholders who plan the big infrastructure projects need to understand Wildlife conservation and landscape connectivity conservation. Local communities too need to change their traditional forest-dwelling practices and accommodate the changing wildlife populations.

Has the village relocation plan worked? 

Yes, the village relocation programme has been a great success in India to provide inviolate spaces to tigers. The nature conservancies coming up slowly, have addressed the issue of crop damages and livestock losses and provided a win-win solution. Community based conservation model established in central India in the past two decades has shown that local community and wildlife have no option other than to co-exists in the vast landscapes and corridors, beyond core areas. For example, six villages from the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve have been relocated. Now we have recorded Lesser Floricans to those meadows. This is a great success story.

Could you elaborate a bit on BNHS’ vulture conservation programme?

India’s vulture conservation breeding programme has attained sustainability and the birds bred in captivity  are being released in the wild on a regular basis. The population of Gyps species – White-rumped vulture (Oriental white-backed vulture), Indian vulture (Long-billed vulture), and Slender-billed vulture – crashed during the mid-1990s throughout the Indian sub-continent. Now captive-bred birds are being released in the wild. 

BNHS  worked on the millet project in your own way.

2024 marked the International Year of Millets (IYOM). We came out with a presentation and poster on  ‘Birds and Millets’. The poster that BNHS had made include birds like Rose-ringed parakeet, Plum-headed parakeet, Red-headed bunting, Tricoloured munia, Indian silverbill, Scaly-breasted munia, Indian peafowl, Black francolin, Baya weaver and House sparrow - and speaks about its relationship with millets like Pearl (Bajra), Foxtail (Kangni), Barnyard (Sama), Kodo (Kodon), Finger (Nachni) and Sorghum (Jowar).