Protected areas shrinking amid rising development pressure, warns wildlife conservationist Ranjitsinh

Former Chief secretary S.M. Vijayanand and former Indian Forest Service officer Prakriti Srivastava watching a photo exhibition on the inaugural day of the Wildlife Week Celebrations organised by the Coexistence Collective, Kerala, and the State Central Library, in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.

Prominent wildlife conservationist M.K. Ranjitsinh Jhala has cautioned that India’s protected areas are shrinking even as pressure from development, mining and tourism continues to grow.

Delivering the wildlife week message at the National Wildlife Week celebrations organised by the Coexistence Collective in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday, Dr. Ranjitsinh said conservation should focus not merely on iconic animals such as tigers, elephants and leopards, but on preserving their habitats and the ecological systems that sustain people. “Wildlife means all animate things found wild in nature,” said Dr. Ranjitsinh, the chief architect of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. 

He said Keralam was particularly fortunate to be located in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, the Western Ghats, and stressed that its remaining evergreen forests constituted a natural national heritage that could not be recreated once destroyed.