The Sprint Of The Blackbuck
Conservation, in India, can become a polarizing subject. Green activists are often seen as woolly-headed intellectuals, out of touch with the realities and prioritizing trees over humans. The media too sometimes present debates this way. There is a growing realization though, that it is not a question of trees over humans; that indeed, humans need trees (and the other living things that form part of the ecosystem) for their very survival. Writings on the environment that are accessible to the layperson, will play an important role in spreading this awareness.
The Sprint of the Blackbuck, a collection of writings on wildlife and conservation in South India, selected from The Blackbuck, the quarterly journal of the Madras Naturalists’ Society, is one such effort. Edited by Theodore Baskaran , himself a well-known writer on environmental issues, it is an excellent collection, that can be enjoyed equally by the layperson and someone more steeped in the academic/scientific discourse on wildlife and conservation.
Divided into 4 sections - Wildlife, Habitats, Conservation and Documenting Wildlife - it covers many different issues and perspectives. Some of the best pieces in the collection, such as M. Krishnan’s Nilgiri Langur in Mundanthurai Sanctuary, cover beautifully the intersection between a particular species, a habitat and it’s response to human-engineered conflict. Indeed, all of M. Krishnan’s writings included in Sprint of the Blackbuck are notable for the love of wildlife evident in the writing, the attention to detail and the manner in which scientific concepts such as adaptation are explained so lucidly. (Next on my reading list is Mazhaikalamum Kuyilosaiyum, a collection of M. Krishnan’s writings on the environment, in Tamizh).
Some of the best pieces of the collection are also to be found in the Habitat section, evocative writings on animals in different environments. One grouse I had with the book is that while the pieces have been picked from 25 years of The Blackbuck journal, the original dates of publishing have not been mentioned along with each piece. This is a drawback for most pieces, but especially for those in the Habitat and Conservation sections - while reading about the scrub jungle on the edge of Chennai or an experiment in conservation at Rishi Valley, it is important to know what period these descriptions refer to.
Another drawback is the absence of good-quality photographs, but this presumably, is a budget constraint. If not, it would have been good to see photographs at least for those pieces where one species of deer or monkey is compared to another, and the layperson does not really know the difference between these.
In all other respects, The Sprint of the Blackbuck makes for excellent reading and will open your mind to thinking of the environment and conservation efforts in a more inclusive manner.
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