Assessment of Wildlife Bird Conservation in India

The book 'Important Bird Areas in India: sites for conservation' is the result of five years' exhaustive work by the BNHS and a large number of people. The data, which form the core of the book, have been collected by more than 1000 people: many hundreds of professional and amateur ornithologists, birdwatchers, conservationists, forest officials and others interested in birds. BNHS and a large number of people. It is the most detailed It is the most detailed publication ever produced on the subject of birds or conservation and it uncovers, analyses and assesses all the evidence, presenting it together with all the sources. The study has gives a detailed analysis of sites that have been identified for bird conservation in India on the basis of globally accepted criteria. Each bird area is introduced with maps, analysis, avifauna section with tables of threatened species present and brief description of threatened birds, which have important habitats in the relevant states. uncovers, analyses and assesses all the evidence, presenting The study shows that out of 465 important bird area in India, 191 wildlife sanctuaries have been identified as IBAs, 52 are national parks, 23 are tiger reserves, while 198 are not officially protected. The book has 525 maps and 600 tables. The present study area i.e., Shettihalli Wildlife Sanctuary, Islam and Rahmani gave details of and classified it as an IBA among the 191 listed wildlife sanctuaries.

Karanth and Nepal aregues that high densities of people living around protected areas in South Asia require management strategies to balance both conservation apects and people's livelihood. They made a survey of 777 households around five protected areas (PAs) in India and Nepal, showcased a comparative perspective of Indian and Nepali households’ views of protected area benefits and costs, their attitude toward conservation in general, and attitude toward protected area staff in their paper titled ' Local residents perception of benefits and losses from Protected Areas in India and Nepal'. Results showed mixed responses towardseco- tourism, varying from very favorable in Nepal to less favorable in India. The majority held positive attitudes towards the existence and importance of PAs but had negative perceptions of PA staff. The authors found that most residents expected benefits from access to fuel wood, fodder and other PA resources including benefits from tourism, while crop and livestock losses from wildlife were the main costs. Households overall positive attitudes towards the PAs and conservation despite high losses from living around PAs suggests that local residents may support conservation if their livelihood needs are met. Comparisons of household attitudes and perceptions suggest that locally based strategies rather than top-down approaches are likely to be more effective. Extending PA benefits to smaller landholders, households that are highly resource-dependent or experiencing higher income losses from human-wildlife conflicts, and less educated residents are particularly important to balance costs and losses from living around protected areas.

Daniels et al., 1990 was aimed to reveal responses of bird community to the different plantation, to identify species shared in all plantation, and species confined to a particular plantation. The authors selected the study site as plantation forests, using the point count method for 64 effective hours. Number of individuals, species density, and diversity index in different plantation types was analysed and found mixed plantation having the least diversity and proved wrong on the prediction by Chao. Although there were some differences in tree species, tree sizes, and tree heights, the response of bird composition in all plantations was not differed probably because of the short distances among the forests, the abundance of food insects, and the same late-successional stages. There were 15 (37.5%) widely distributed species in all forest types. According to the authors (Gupta and Singh, 2003) river banks are among the most stressed ecosystems because of periodic erosion, floods, silting and a variety of anthropogenic pressures. Riparian lands are important in buffering nutrient flow from upland watersheds to water bodies. River corridors face a lot of biotic activities causing soil erosion and loss of nutrients.

Due to various human activities, the number of river corridor wetlands are changing day by day. The authors in their study have chosen river Varuna which is a main tributary of famous river Ganga in Varanasi. It has extensive marginal wetlands. Four distinct regions at Varuna river corridor, were selected along the river course in Varanasi, facing variety of effluents discharged from various small scale industries viz. carpet-dying, soap, fertilizers, fireworks, agarbatti, metal-utensils, battery making industries, iron foundries and ayurvedic medicine's units. The effluents of these industries are, either being discharged directly into the river or at the river corridor. Their soil analysis shows variation in its important characteristics such as pH, EC, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium at the study sites. The heavy metal content at four regions for Cd, Cu, Cr and Fe, ranged pretty high. The most dominant riparian herb found at four different regions was Polygonum amphibium, Cyperus rotundus, Aponogeton pectinatus and Ageratum conyzoides respectively. The water analysis of river at four different regions of the corridor was recorded and showed the physio-chemical characteristics. They indicate that the first region (Rameshwar) showing least pollution but as the river moves ahead towards the city, due to increasing pollution load, especially of small scale industries situated at the river corridor, the soil and water gets more polluted and the physio-chemical characteristics indicate that, wetlands show drastic change in its quality and nature.