On the journey

Recently I was astounded by the comments made by the Chief Minister of Bihar (and earlier by Utter Pradesh Chief Minister) suggesting that Nepal hasn’t done enough to control the flood. Firstly Nepal is in no position (expertise as well finance) to build dams and secondly building large dams aren’t environmentally viable. India can ask, if you can’t we will help. But, did India ever live up to its promises on Tanakpur, Mahalisagar, Khurdalotan, Gandak and other barrages? Forget about the regular inundation in Nepalese territory, those dams haven’t been fruitful to the Indian side too.

I am not a hydrologist nor I am a river engineer, but hearing decry of big dams all over the world I find it obvious to believe that big dams are not the solution. We should definitely harness water for drinking, irrigation and electricity, but big projects come with more predicaments. It’s impossible to tame big rivers so it will be wise to go along with it, relocate people from flood zones rather than build dams that helps one location but inundates lot more. If people keep settling on river delta, there will be lot more flooding reoccurrences.

Picture Source: BBC News

To understand the quality of environment or the effects of a restoration, scientist use certain indicator species. The habit and habitat of a particular indicator species is a very useful index to quantify the effectiveness of a conservation project. For example increase in the diversity and species richness of indicator species is good measure of a successful project. To ensure the sustainability of conservation efforts for a long run, researchers mark an individual and follow its activities throughout. Birds and amphibians are usually considered to be the best indicator species.

In Nepal, I have known about marking of rhinos and periodic tracking. In America I came across concept of bird banding. When a particular bird is captured a band is applied on its leg. The band includes a code which is entered in a big database, whenever the same bird is captured somewhere else the band code will deliver all the information about the history of that bird (Follow this link to find more information on bird banding).

Unlike birds anurans have a very small spatial range so they are confined to the same area for rest of their life. Today I attended a seminar by a Herpetologist where he mentioned different ways to mark a particular anuran species. One of the easiest and popular ways he mentioned was toe clipping. Oh yes, cutting the toe of a frog so that it will be easily identified next time. The process is simple and inexpensive, but is that ethical? I know painting on the back of the rhino doesn’t hurt and banding doesn’t seem to bother the birds, but I loathed the idea of toe clipping. Although it’s not proven scientifically that toe clipping affects their survival rate, but still why would someone hurt a species to know how good the environment is? I have dissected earthworms, frogs, and squirrels during my high school but still for some reason I got shivers when I heard about toe clipping. May be the species I dissected were dead and this toe clipped anuran has to live it’s life with it.

Human are the most superior species on earth, so it’s unlikely that some other species will run experiment on them, but what if like in Star Trek some superior species from other planet use human as an ecological indicator for their “Earth’s Restoration Project”. In that case I would be happier to wear a band around my neck than clip my toe.

Banding Picture Source: http://www.audubonmagazine.org/auduboninaction/images/IAbird.jpg
Toad Picture Source: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7007/images/431403a-f1.0.jpg

I had read a lot about wetlands, heard a lot about it too but it compared to nothing until I got to see one by myself. After being in one, I felt my text book knowledge was huge injustice to real functions of a wetlands, not that I didn’t knew but I simply couldn’t have visualized. Last Friday one of my colleagues invited me to join them for a field trip to Atchafalaya Basin; they were planning to retrieve data from their water level recorder. I had a GIS project going for the same location, so I felt having exposure to ground condition will further enhance my analysis capabilities.

Atchafalaya Basin is located in central Louisiana, and is a combination of wetlands and river delta, where Atchafalaya River drains to the Gulf of Mexico. Historically Mississippi River followed the present course of Atchafalya River to the Gulf of Mexico. After the Great Flood of 1927 Congress has mandated that 30% of Mississippi River and Red River (tributary of Mississippi) has to flow through Atchafalaya (using River Control System).

We boarded a 17 foot whaler and setoff in Atchafalya River (oh ya, we did put on chest waders). I had never seen such diversity of birds in my life, I could see gators basking in sun, snakes moving in the water, and mature bottomland hardwood forest (Atchafalaya is the largest bottomland hardwood forest swamp in USA).

When the water in the main channel gets higher, the water flows into back swamps and back lake, and when the main channel recesses the water flows back to the main channel (If you click my picture to enlarge, you can see flood marks on the trees). In the process the sediments are retained, and one could visually see the difference in the color of main channel (turbid) Vs the sediment free water coming out from back swamps and back lake (dark, due to tanning by leaves). Besides wildlife diversity and sediment retention, wetlands have other importances too: carbon sequestration and denitrification, one of the major causes of Hypoxia in Gulf of Mexico.

Earlier I used to dream of clear waters, but now I won’t mind water covered with Duckweed complimented by wildlife diversity and serene environment. I am unaware of wetlands in Nepal, but judging by my experience in Atchafalya, we can open doors towards new tourism venture if we can provide boats and accommodation facilities to Ornithologist and bird lovers.

Recent ‘Living Planet’ report published by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has stated that the current natural resources depletion is the worst in human history. Many species have extinct in past two decades at an alarming rate. The demand for resources had never been greater before. It cautioned that if the need continued at the current scale, two planets would be needed to meet global demand by 2050. Another interesting fact is if the world populations live the UK’s lifestyle, three planets would be needed to support their needs.

This report was created based on ‘Ecological Footprint’, an indicator based on measure of human demand on the natural world. Living Planet Index, assesses the health of the planet’s ecosystems, was another indicator.

For sustainability, the planet is only able to meet consumption levels of 1.8 global hectares per person. Due to the consumption rate, mostly by developed countries, the global footprint exceeded the earth’s biocapacity by 25% in 2003, which meant that the Earth could no longer carry on with the demands being placed upon it.

Looking at the trend of consumption and depletion, if Nepal ever gets her problem sorted and proceeds towards development, there won’t be any resources left to fuel it. Third world countries would never get an opportunity to live a life that people in developed countries are living. It’s hard to imagine the world in that condition; we will see more bloodsheds than ever.

Majority of reports published alarming the ecosystem depletion is generally blamed to be too pessimistic. It is said that they don’t consider the fact that with technological advancements some of these issues can be sorted.

Although, there might be a hope for technological advancements, but no one can debate that we definitely are exerting more pressure on the ecosystem affecting its sustainability.