Wildlife is a valuable resource in any country, upon
which man has depended since the dawn of civilization. It has not only provided him with
food and clothing, but also joy and pleasure.Man's undue interference with nature has made
it necessary to protect and preserve the wildlife. In the words of late Prime Minister
Jawahar Lal Nehru, "……life would become dull and colorless if we did not
have these magnificent animals and birds to look at and to play with.
We must try to
preservewhatever is left of our forests and the wildlife that inhabits them." To
achieve this objective, many National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries have been set up,
notable of which are the Kaziranga National Park, Nagarjuna Sagar Sanctuary, Gir National
Park, Gobind Sagar Bird Sanctuary, Dachigam Sanctuary etc. Sanctuaries and National Parks
protect wildlife from extinction, but safeguard varied ecosystems, prevent soil erosion
and help in recycling of wastes. Apart from these, Wildlife Organizations like the World
Wide Fund (WWF)- India, with headquarters in Mumbai, the Wildlife Preservation Society of
India (WPSI) housed in Dehradun and the Indian Board for Wildlife (IBWL), are engaged in
conducting researches, carrying out conservation campaigns and suggesting ways and means
to prevent the wildlife species from going on the road to extinction. Its value can be
ideally summed up in the words of Aldo Leopold who stated that, " Wildlife once fed
us and shaped our culture. It still yields us pleasure for leisure hours, but we try to
reap that pleasure by modern machinery and thus destroy part of its value. Reaping it by
modern mentality would yield not only pleasure, but wisdom as well." |
