whitehimalaya’s Recent Comments

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  India

  Despite its dreadful record with water and air pollution, India will tend to score high in any environmental survey because of its vegetarianism and an traditionally environment friendly culture, that has survived despite the stresses of consumerism and endemic poverty. While population is a drag, the biggest culprit is the anachronistically socialist government, which owns the forest land and almost all water resources, but effectively does not allow  participation by people in afforestation or water management.

  At the same time, the bloated and inept bureaucracy is busy thoroughly mismanaging the numerous environmental schemes, if not actually siphoning off resources ostensibly meant for environmental improvement, including reduction of river pollution.On Brazilians and Indians are the greenest, says survey posted 1 year, 6 months ago 9 Responses

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  Monkey menace

  Indians as a rule do not worship monkeys - although many Hindus worship Hanuman, the monkey god. However, Indian religions like Hinduism, Budhism, Jainism, teach respect for all life and encourage vegetarianism. So when they talk about removing monkeys, they mean shifting them to another place, maybe a jungle in reluctant states like Uttarakhand.

  Having seen and experienced the problem first hand in India, I think the monkey proliferation in urban and semi-urban India has many ecological implications.

  1. The monkeys have usually been uprooted from their forests, that are fast disappearing under the benignly neglectful eyes of India's forest authorities which monopolize all forest land. They are being forced out from scrub land by the urban sprawl.

  2.With no natural predators,monkey populations are increasing dramatically. And the urban born native monkey is a cunning, fearless and aggressive sophisticate pitching against what it sees as a docile population which owes it a living.

  3. Other urban fauna eg songbirds are getting wiped out, with their eggs and nests under constant attack. Animal welfare activists have tended so far to turn a blind eye to this decimation of birds in Indian towns and cities.

  4. People like feeding monkeys regardless of their religious persuasion, because it feels good and the monkeys are so cute. This causes a further dependence of the monkeys on human populations and the monkeys get extremely aggressive if they are not fed. They will attack the ex-regular beneficiary if s/he fails to turn up with food, snatch food from unwary passersby and even get inside homes, raid the kitchen and the fridge (yes, they are that smart)

  5. Many of the monkeys carry parasites and pathologies that can easily crossover to humans (although this can always work the other way to the detriment of monkeys)

  Indians have built laughably few and inadequately designed sanctuaries for monkeys, as for instance, in south Delhi. This 45' high walled structure holds a few hundred monkeys, but only at their will. When  they get bored or need a change of diet, they climb over the walls and take off for the nearby villages, only to come back for the night's shelter and free government rations.

  In democratic India anything which has even a hint of political incorrectness doesn't even get off the start block. So no one will act on suggestions to neuter the monkeys or send them off to India's eastern states and neighbors who shall be happy to eat them up. Period. On Thousands of monkeys uprooted by sprawl move into New Delhi posted 2 years ago 4 Responses