Wildlife conservationists sometimes decry all politicians as hostile to the cause. Yet, in my six decades advocating wildlife conservation, I have seen remarkable exceptions to this sentiment.
Any state forest minister has the potential to have a huge impact — either positive or negative — on conservation. However, the reality he or she faces is more complex if he or she is from the wildlife-rich Malnad region. His or her family, supporters and voters may face animal depredations, official restrictions on tree-felling, and a curb on cattle grazing.
Or they may lack access to roads, hospitals, schools, and other amenities. Often these impacts arise from legal actions necessary for wildlife recovery. The funders and voters may expect their politicians to support forest encroachments, illegal forest product collection or even hunting.
On the other hand, for politicians from the plains with so little area under forests these factors matter less — They can be far more effective as forest ministers. However, most of them view the forest portfolio as a burden to be shed rather than an opportunity to do good. My story is about an exceptional forest minister from the plains of Karnataka.
When I began interacting with the forest department in the 1960s, national wildlife laws were weak. Hunting of predators for official rewards and of prey species for meat or ‘crop protection’ was rampant. Encroachments of forests were routinely “regularised” because the state forest minister had the legal power. Both official and illegal logging flourished.
At this critical juncture, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi turned out to be the visionary who responded to pleadings of conservationists. She rammed through strong wildlife and habitat protection laws. She also shrewdly compensated the state governments for the revenue they lost by releasing additional plan funds if they implemented her new laws.
Under her iron-fisted rule, the Karnataka Government did better than any other state to effectively implement the new conservation laws. This was largely because of a politician from Gadag district in the plains, who had reluctantly assumed the forest portfolio. He bore an apt nickname: Hulakotiya Huli (The Tiger from Hulakoti village). Short-statured and built like a battle tank, Kishtagouda Hanumanthagouda Patil was a true force of nature. He turned out to be a force for nature too. He was a “dissident” against Indira’s chosen Chief Minister Devaraj Urs. Yet Patil was able to unleash a series of radical forest and wildlife conservation measures using the new laws.
Patil was a Gandhian, who rose from the cooperative moment. He was not only incorruptible but also pugnacious, shrewd and savvy just as Gandhiji was!
Conservation impact Patil made, while holding charge of forests for less than four years, is truly incredible. Patil picked clean, competent forest officials ignoring political pressures.
During his early visits to the forests in Malnad with them, Patil was horrified by the ongoing destruction he saw all around. He acted promptly and aggressively. Patil surrendered his own legal power as a forest minister to “regularise” forest encroachments. This state law inspired Indira to enact the Forest Conservation Act a few years later.
Patil tasked his officials with creating a network of Wildlife Protected Areas by upgrading smaller game reserves to Wildlife Sanctuaries, and by carving out entirely new areas out of the Reserved Forests.
Patil acted preemptively to abolish the populist, but highly destructive “pre-paid license system” which permitted thousands of villagers to routinely cut and remove timber forests on bullock carts or headloads. Under Patil’s rule, forest encroachments by farmers as well as forest leases to plywood and mining industries were drastically curtailed.
Patil’s leadership was the critical key to these remarkable nature recovery efforts in Karnataka. Surprising as it seems now, they were executed efficiently by a modest forest department, which sported a single chief conservator, five conservators and a couple of dozen deputy conservators, who managed forests across the entire state!
Unfortunately, none of Patil’s successors, over past four decades, appear to have imbibed the wisdom that underpinned his achievements.