Pandanus odoratissimus (Kewra)

[KBW]

Newton
Sir a very good share. As per my knowledge this is still in force. But absence of legislation has never been a problem of Pakistan. It is the non-implementation of the same which is the worry.

Hundreds and thousands of grown up plants (mostly palms and few other trees and bushes) have been taken out from the wild in the past few years by this cartel of few local (who know the area), the nursery walas in big cities (who are the buyers), forest and wildlife dept guys (who protect this theft). The development departments should also investigate that if they have ordered for 5000 plants / trees and they have been provided by a nursery wala, from where those plants and trees came. If they have been stolen for the wilderness than those Govt and Private departments as well as the home gardners who buy these plants are also responsible because without their uncontrollable desire / ignorance to buy these plants, this business would not succeed.

Same goes for animals and birds. Last year I observed that in so many areas where one would see a large number of partridges, quails, wild pigeons and other birds /animals, there is hardly any. Ruthless hunting has been described as the major reason. Well, uncontrolled hunting is a reason for this downfall but not a main reason at all. Poaching by the locals is the main reason. These guys now know that so and so plant will fetch good money and a partridge will sell in Rs 500 to 1000 in Lahore. Even a wild quail will fetch good money. A deer, if caught alive, will fetch anything between 40-100 k (depending on specie) and even dead, it will fetch around 10000 for the meat alone. So these guys have now become experts in laying traps for birds and animals and catch them in bulk. Those who hunt know that if one does it properly, it's not that easy to shoot a flying partridge. A bad shooter may not be able to take a single bird in whole day. Even the good shooters feel satisfied if they end up with 6 birds per gun in a day (which is the bag limit). So its not that easy to eliminate wild life through gun hunting. It is trapping and different other methods of poaching in which one can catch 50, 100 or even 200 birds a day.

If we will not take care of our environment, no one will. For this, awareness on the subject is essential. Many people do not have the idea that what they are doing, how harmful it is to the environment.

regards

[newton]

KBW Sb I agree with your sentiments

There is an argument that organised hunting helps counteract this and conserve our wildlife habitats. When it wanes due to housing developments replacing forests/scrubland, aging hunters hang up their guns and youngsters sit down in front of Facebook rather than venture outdoors. With fewer hunters, there is less revenue for the wildlife industry and government conservation efforts. There seems to be amongst us a lack of awareness and understanding of the wider issues involved, secondly commercial interests and greed seems to be a driving factor behind wildlife poaching. That's when organised crime actually takes advantage.

Perhaps outlining the issue based upon the quranic teachings could install a healthy respect for our wildlife at an early age. We cant rely on the state to do it all for us. It is up to us locally to direct our imams and teachers to spread this message at grass roots level. , our mosques/masjids seem to be an ideal starting point and subjects like this which are mentioned in the Koran would take no more than a few minutes but have great impact.

In all fairness the authorities do prosecute on occasion's however the penalties need to be harsher to act as a deterrent http://tribune.com.pk/story/612069/wild ... l-hunting/

Perversely this poor guy ended up being shifted to the far side of his area but it seems like he had allready been advised and chose to ignore it. There could be several underlying advantages to the conservation here or it could just be officials greed higher up only allah knows http://dawn.com/news/752926/wildlife-of ... g-poachers

Regards
Ifzal

[KBW]

It has been established now that controlled hunting is the best practical way to preserve wildlife. Now how do you preserve wild life through hunting?
The model is being practiced in numerous places in Northern Areas. ie, an area is demarkated and alloted to the nearest villages. For all type of hunting, their is a permit. The fee is distributed 80% to local people and 20% to the Govt. Like an Ibex permit is 50000 rupees. Out of this 40,000 will go to village and 10000 to Govt. For Markhor, the permit is 100000 US $ (which is extremely high price for Pakistanis). Than there are smaller permits for birds etc. In return, locals are supposed to ensure that no illegal hunting and poaching is done in their area. Once cash money is going to every house, no one even from the village can do poaching because others will take care of him. There is a hunting limit which is announced, eg, 20 Ibex and 5 Markhor will be hunted this year and it is followed. These areas are developing fast because people are getting lot of money and it has become virtually impossible to hunt illegally in these area. If 80,000 $ are coming to a village for one Markhor, why would they allow anyone to shoot it illegally. Even the DC or SP of the area cant dare to do it I have virtually seen people standing infront of the vehicles of senior govt officials and did not allow them to hunt. The population of animals is growing at a rapid pace and this year, one of my friends showed me a movie in which children were playing cricket and just 500 m from them, a herd of Markhor was grazing, just near the village. Unbelievable sight but since the village people give markhors lot to eat and no body harms them, they have now started coming close to village.

Poaching can not be stopped without involving local people and the whole programme has to be supervised and controlled by the State, with the cooperation of the local people. Moral or ethical restrictions may stop a few but if the reward is high, it wont help much. Than, religious understanding of the people and religious teachers also makes lot of difference. For example, it is difficult to convince a person ethically that why taking out a plant (not even a tree) from the wild and selling it to someone from the city is unethical. He would just say that there are hundreds of them growing in the wild and so what if I took out a few. So the effort has to be supplemented by legislation as done in case of hunting.

It's a very interesting topic and if the Govt and influencial rich people take interest, we can do a lot to save our environment. But the botton line for any plan would be that it should provide some benefit to the local people directly. Otherwise, they will keep violating the laws on the behest of commercial people from big cities. More importantly, environment protection has to start from cities. It cant happen that in our homes and mohallahs and roads we keep doing everything against the environment but want the people living in the wilderness follow environmental rules. In my experience, the problem in most cases starts from the so called educated city people. They are the ones who give money to the people living in far flung areas to do things which are killing our environment. I roam around in far flung areas of Pakistan quite often and as per my experience, the so called illeterate locals have much better understanding of environmental protection than we, the people from cities. They know far better than us how to protect environment because they live there. But when we offer them heavy money, many of them are tempted to do wrong things. Just my two cents.

regards

[newton]

Thank you for some very interesting information, I have never known how in practise our wildlife preservations happen.

I wonder if any such lists exists of our endangered and rare flora too, however at this point I personally feel these subject matters are of sufficient merit to be included in their own post.

Regards
Ifzal

[M Farooq]

Dear contributors, we can start a new thread with a suitable heading for these environmentally relevant issues- otherwise these topics will be buried under the Pandanus entry and new readers will probably never read these issues if they are not interested in Pandanus. Nobody knows that we are discussing pesticides and hunting laws under this entry.

Thanks.

[KBW]

Very good idea. I was just thinking of this that there are around three threads where environmental issues are being discussed and some very good input has come in. I think it deserves a dedicated thread.

[mikhurram]

Not sure whether its a male or a female kewra but have been informed that this particular specie is fragrant.

[Kaleem]

Have seen this plant many times but today I came to know that , above mentioned plant is called Kewra plant. Thanks for sharing .

[M Farooq]

Khurram sahab, your plant looks like true kewra. They key feature is that that the leaves are thick (leathery) and dark greenish -grey. This plant is very young but still worth trying.

Kaleem sb, there are many similar looking screw pines but kewra is quite rare esp. in Pakistani gardens.

[mikhurram]

Dr farooq,
Whenever you need a kewra you can have it from me. I owe you one. Had it not been your post it would have remained an elusive plant. Shall try to root some cuttings in march. Was reading on Wikipedia that snakes are attracted to kewra's flower.