The malaise of vehicle based tourism in our forests

Tourism in Tiger Sanctuaries has been temporarily banned by the Supreme Court.

During the late nineties, had done a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation on what percentage of a wildlife sanctuary, in that case, Bandipur, was under roads and associated tracts. With more than six hundred kilometres of motorable track and the associated 'visibility lines' that we have, and more than a thousand kilometres as fire-lines, at least some fifteen or twenty percent of the sanctuary is laid waste and bare (at least for vegetation dwelling animals). Here, even the free regeneration of plants is affected and only some which are able to withstand the hand of man thrive.

For example, if one drove through these so called tourist roads and paths, say, at Nagarahole, ever wondered why there are so many more Ficus species here along the tracks when compared to the interior of the forest? That is because the practice of clearing removes any seedling that germinates. Since most Ficus there start their lives as epiphytes, germinating on existing trees and sending their roots down, they are already 'trees' by the time they come close to the ground and are hence not cut. So one sees more Ficus along the visibility lines. So with the net result, we have more members of colonising (or R-selected or ruderal, to use formal terms) species, in these managed strips. The point is that, in all this talk about ‘wildlife’, the vegetation gets left out. The long term health of the plant communities, as plant assemblages, gets forgotten conveniently. Destroying the ruderal plant species might be easy, but is not the action we should be taking. Is not prevention better than cure? and prudence better than valour?

Banning vehicle based tourism, reducing the enormous lengths of motorable tourism tracks, and scrapping the associated visibility lines should do wonders to a forest. Hail wilderness, Hail vegetation!