The Kingdom of Rarities by Eric Dinerstein

Author:Eric Dinerstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610912075
Publisher: Island Press

I wish the story could have ended here—an account of a triumphant recovery of a once common species made rare by humans but given a second chance. But Nepal soon plunged into its darkest period in modern history. After a popular call for a democratic government, King Birendra accepted the change from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy in 1990. But democracy failed to take root, and word began to filter out of the western hills of a violent separatist group that called itself Maoist and sought the overthrow of the monarchy and the creation of a communist state.

Then, in 2000, the unthinkable occurred: most of the royal family was assassinated by one of its own. The kingdom went into mourning as the middle brother, Gyanendra, assumed the throne. Units of the Royal Nepalese Army that had been stationed in the national parks, partly to protect rhinos and other wildlife, were soon shifted into the hills to fight the Maoists, leaving the parks wide open to emboldened poachers. The devastating results provided a glimpse of how civil unrest or even civil war can be the death knell for rarities.

In Bardia, all of the 70 or so rhinos that had been translocated to the Babai Valley were wiped out. Chitwan suffered a staggering blow, losing about 170 rhinos to poachers. Its rhino population dropped from around 550 to about 370, about the same level as when we finished our census in 1987. For a while, all seemed lost.

And then, in 2005, Nepal began to right itself. The citizenry rallied, a peace movement emerged, and the government negotiated a cease-fire with the Maoists.

When the smoke cleared, our survey teams returned to assess the damage in Bardia and Suklaphanta. The Babai population of rhinos was gone, but all was not lost. The first group of rhinos moved to the western border of Bardia along the Karnali River in 1986 had grown from 13 to more than 30 animals. Several calves had been born in Suklaphanta, where the rhino population had almost doubled from the 4 reintroduced there. Across the border in India, rhinos sent from Chitwan had helped start a founder population in Dudhwa National Park that remained stable. A few colonists from Bardia had crossed into India’s Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary and started another breeding group, and then some from Suklaphanta had crossed into India, to the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary. So while overall numbers were down, the risk of extinction—and the promise of recovery—had been distributed among five reserves.

There was no way to deny that the large number of rhinos poached in Chitwan and Bardia represented a enormous loss. But when a few more were killed by poachers in 2006, the people of Chitwan District took action. They gathered 100,000 signatures on a petition demanding that the government uphold its obligation to protect the rhinos. This remarkable display of popular conservation support is a rarity itself. It demonstrated that even in the poorest regions on Earth local residents may recognize their unique heritage and have pride enough to want to preserve it.

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