Brought
out by nature quest, a forum to promote and
conserve wildlife, the program apart from
the screening involved an interaction with
its maker Mr.Shekar Dattatri(www.shekardattatri.com).
While the one on Panna focused on the different
phases of the reserve through the different
seasons of the year, the one on Kanha focused
on the forest guard and their importance in
protecting the park. At the end its people
who deal directly with the animals.
The audience could not but awe at the handworks
of nature, but also had to control the anger
when there were scenes of human’s ruthless
involvement with nature.
Coming to the interaction with the maker,
who has traveled a long way from being a volunteer
at the Snake Park at the age of 13 to the
present level, his experience fed the open
mined viewers with lots of awareness.
He said in India wildlife and nature is seen
as a luxury and the last priority but its
conservation is the need of the hour. Proving
this point with an example of the Periyar
national park where the Periyar river originates,
he said if the flora and fauna of this reserve
was hit then the river may stop flowing and
the thanjavur belt wont get its share of water
for harvesting rice. and in turn there would
be no production.
On a question on the tiger numbers, he said
though India has traveled a long way in technical
advancement but we fail to implement our technology
in areas of the urgent necessity. This in
turn has led to uncertainty in calculating
the numbers in the reserves..
Speaking on the Sariska episode he said all
the wrong things have been done and we may
never see a tiger there. This would lead to
loss of flora and fauna due to the lack of
funds and less tourist arrival. As for any
tourist the trip is completed only with the
citing of the majestic tiger (remember William
Blake’s poem on the tiger!!!)
To emphasize a bit more to the audience he
said, the world would survive if man is taken
out of the ecosystem, but not any other creature,
especially these cats.
The solution….., involvement of passionate
people, increase in awareness in the public,
stringent rules like in Kaziranga to shoot
poachers on the spot. At last we must individually
understand the importance of conservation
Finally the show ended with a signature campaign
to the Hon. Prime Minister to emphasise that
we do care for our wildlife.
