INDIANANGLER

Hi again,

All I say friends that take a poll from all the members and if all agree then create a fund for conservation / Environmental activities. Bagiganga, as you go to the spot mentioned above can you find out the time and procedure of the auction of these river stretches. Can you also contact the group you mentioned from Doon. I still have some contacts there and will try to find out more about this project.

Bops, rest assure that irrespective of east, west, north or south, in case of any effort to protect our environment you will always find me on the front.

Regards,

Ali..

A very noble thought indeed, Ali.
But it still needs a lot of in-depth thinking.
Angling for us is a sport, while fishing is a means of livelihood for the locals.
We may go to any extent to protect the environment, but if it affects the livelihood of the locals, they will never co-operate.
Take the example of Powai itself - in spite of MSAA staff being present round the clock, they still cannot prevent poaching.
Or what we have read on this forum about Jungle Lodges who claim to be helpless to prevent dynamiting activities in the Cauvery ... that too in the stretches under their "protection" !!

The locals should be involved in such a way that they find it more lucrative to save the mahseer than to kill it - then and only then would such efforts bear fruit.

A very valid point and require lot of indepth thinking. If you go through my mail, what i suggest is that we must involve the local fisherman and without that we can not do any thing. The local fisherman there are poor folks and thay sell there catches on a throwaway price. If we can help them in forming some sort of cooprative where in thay get proper price for there catch and earn good money they inturn will surely try to protect there livelyhood. Its a thought. Your inputs are very important.

Ali.

Ali, Hawkeye and all, we discussed all those kinds of ideas at the meeting in Bangalore in April and if you read the transcript of the meeting (in this same part of the forum) you can see one of the main concerns now is that plenty of people talk about these issues, nobody actually gets up and acts!
Outrigor Sandeep is one who goes out with his Clean and Green group making a difference, perhaps some small steps like that would help?

As I mentioned in the PM to you last week, Ali, why not get on board with starting the Indian Freshwater Foundation as organiser for Central India?

Time to stop gassing and get moving...

Steve,
I am calling a meeting of all the anglers i know next week and during that meeting we will formalize the fresh water foundation. We have a sort of unofficial association here in Mumbai and Santosh is The organization. I will also contact Sandeep regarding these matters. It was not very clear to me how this proposed fresh water foundation will work. If we register our organization here in Mumbai, this foundation will be an independent entity. How do you propose the coordination part. I say first lets form a national body and register the different bodies under the national body. Kindly apprise me if I am missing something.

Thanks for taking the first step.

Regards,

Ali.

Hi Ali,
If you read the post in this conservation forum, called Bangalore meeting part one - environmental group, it should make things a bit clearer. It will take ten minutes to read, but sets out how things should work both locally and on a national basis.

I'm working on a draft letter to send to various important people, as soon as it is ready, I'll email it to everyone I know with an interest, so they can sign it and pass it on, both to those important people and anyone else they know who may be interested to do the same.

Basically, the idea involves all local groups, like Clean and Green in Bangalore, and anyone else with an interest in the waterside environment, accepting a local group to oversee the activities and be the voice that deals with State Government and other bodies.
There would be North, Central and South Indian groups, possibly along the lines of WASI, and a National Body called the Indian Freshwater Foundation.
The North, Central and South bodies would look to build links between smaller groups and gain experience of dealing with State level government, Forestry Depts, etc. The Indian Freshwater Foundation would use education, mass media and dealings with National Government to raise awareness of the issues.

It will be a long, hard slog, but until someone actually gets on and does something, there will only ever be small groups sitting moaning and eventually getting pretty dissillusioned.

As an example, Sunder Raj, the Manager of one of the JLR camps, has been working to involve local poachers, as was discussed earlier on this thread. He really wants someone to start these groups happening, as he said at our meeting: "I've heard these things so many times, but nobody actually does anything!"

Time for someone to actually do something, is it going to be you?

And to anyone else reading this post:
Is it going to be you? Or will you sit back waiting for someone else to do the hard work and moan about it when no one does?

Face it ... its the Indian way of life

A friend of mine informed me yesterday that locals in revdanda (a costal place in western Maharashtra) have caught huge barramundi's worth INR 200K by poisoning ... I don’t know how true this information is, but if something like this has happened, then its really sad as very soon lot more would employ this method to make fast money.

I know its too early & asking for too much considering that the proposed Indian Freshwater Foundation for rivers & ponds is yet to take some shape & size, but is not the poisoning incident of barramundi's worrying enough to invite some attention to marine habitat destruction??

I am not an expert on above, but would be very pleased to contribute in any efforts taken.

Regards,

Santosh

Hey Hawkeye, I said at the meeting in Bangalore that my job from now until I get back to India will be making sure people keep working towards this. So I'm starting to bang heads together .

Don't be another apathetic moaner on the sidelines, say you're with us or throw your rods away.

Santosh, the sea is one big place and usually, rights over safety of water etc are much more difficult to put in place and police. The good thing about freshwater is that there are plenty of laws in place to make sure it stays fresh. That is how we will work.

Very sad about those barra, but if they really have been poisoned, you need to get photos of dead fish, poison bottles or boxes and even some of the b*****ds who did it. But don't put yourself in danger, some of them will shoot or stab.
It's not worth being a dead environmental activist.

I'll add you to the list of people who will keep getting a prod about the issues.

I agree Steve,

I know some from the region.. will try to talk to them.

Regards,

Santosh

Noticed Viraj is no longer posting on this issue. Are you still concerned?