Conservation In A Crowded World Case Studies From The Asiapacific 1st Edition John Merson Rosie Cooney Paul Brown

Conservation In A Crowded World Case Studies
From The Asiapacific 1st Edition John Merson
Rosie Cooney Paul Brown download
https://ebookbell.com/product/conservation-in-a-crowded-world-
case-studies-from-the-asiapacific-1st-edition-john-merson-rosie-
cooney-paul-brown-51240356
Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.
Wildlife Conservation In A Changing Climate Jedediah F Brodie Eric
Post Daniel F Doak
https://ebookbell.com/product/wildlife-conservation-in-a-changing-
climate-jedediah-f-brodie-eric-post-daniel-f-doak-51237572
Biodiversity Conservation In Costa Rica Learning The Lessons In A
Seasonal Dry Forest Gordon W Frankie Editor Alfonso Mata Editor S
Bradleigh Vinson Editor
https://ebookbell.com/product/biodiversity-conservation-in-costa-rica-
learning-the-lessons-in-a-seasonal-dry-forest-gordon-w-frankie-editor-
alfonso-mata-editor-s-bradleigh-vinson-editor-51817224
Biodiversity Conservation In Costa Rica Learning The Lessons In A
Seasonal Dry Forest 2004en 1st Edition Gordon W Frankie
https://ebookbell.com/product/biodiversity-conservation-in-costa-rica-
learning-the-lessons-in-a-seasonal-dry-forest-2004en-1st-edition-
gordon-w-frankie-1002806
Decolonizing Nature Strategies For Conservation In A Postcolonial Era
William M Adams Author
https://ebookbell.com/product/decolonizing-nature-strategies-for-
conservation-in-a-postcolonial-era-william-m-adams-author-2185432

High Mountain Conservation In A Changing World Jordi Catalan
https://ebookbell.com/product/high-mountain-conservation-in-a-
changing-world-jordi-catalan-6751474
High Mountain Conservation In A Changing World Jordi Catalan Josep M
Ninot M Merc Aniz
https://ebookbell.com/product/high-mountain-conservation-in-a-
changing-world-jordi-catalan-josep-m-ninot-m-merc-aniz-59042742
Relicts Of A Beautiful Sea Survival Extinction And Conservation In A
Desert World 1st Edition Christopher Norment
https://ebookbell.com/product/relicts-of-a-beautiful-sea-survival-
extinction-and-conservation-in-a-desert-world-1st-edition-christopher-
norment-4912090
Threatened Freshwater Animals Of Tropical East Asia Ecology And
Conservation In A Rapidly Changing Environment David Dudgeon
https://ebookbell.com/product/threatened-freshwater-animals-of-
tropical-east-asia-ecology-and-conservation-in-a-rapidly-changing-
environment-david-dudgeon-56446380
Stealing Shining Rivers Agrarian Conflict Market Logic And
Conservation In A Mexican Forest 1st Edition Molly Doane
https://ebookbell.com/product/stealing-shining-rivers-agrarian-
conflict-market-logic-and-conservation-in-a-mexican-forest-1st-
edition-molly-doane-51418594

CONSERVATION
CROWDED
WORLD
in a

UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 1 14/11/12 9:14 AM

John Merson is the Executive Director of the Blue
Mountains World Heritage Institute, and Associate
Professor in Environmental Studies at the University of
New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Rosie Cooney is Chair, UCN CEESP/SCC Sustain-
able Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group, (SULi), and Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales, and the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University.
Paul Brown is Associate Professor in Environmental
Humanities, University of New South Wales.
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 2 14/11/12 9:14 AM

CONSERVATION
CROWDED
WORLD
Case studies from the Asia–Pacific
Edited by John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown
in a
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 3 14/11/12 9:14 AM

A UNSW Press book
Published by
NewSouth Publishing
University of New South Wales Press Ltd
University of New South Wales
Sydney NSW 2052
AUSTRALIA
newsouthpublishing.com
© University of New South Wales Press Ltd 2012
First published 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is copyright. While copyright of the work as a whole is vested
in the University of New South Wales Press Ltd, copyright of individual
chapters is retained by the chapter authors. Apart from any fair dealing for
the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under
the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process
without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Title: Conservation in a crowded world: Case studies from the Asia–Pacific/
edited by John Merson, Rosie Cooney, Paul Brown.
ISBN: 9781742233451(pbk)
9781742241371(epub)
9781742243849(mobi)
9781742246215(epdf)
Subjects: Nature conservation – Asia.
Nature conservation – Pacific Area.
Land use – Asia.
Land use – Pacific Area.
Conservation of natural resources – Asia.
Conservation of natural resources – Pacific Area.
Other Authors/Contributors: Merson, John.
Cooney, Rosie.
Brown, Paul.
Dewey Number: 333.7095
Design Stan Lamond Cover design
Josephine Pajor-Markus
Cover image Shutterstock Printer Griffin Press
This book is printed on paper using fibre supplied from plantation or
sustainably managed forests.
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 4 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Foreword Jon Hutton 1
Introduction: environmental conservation and
sustainable use
John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown 2
1 Wildlife, Communities and Protected
Areas
11
Introduction John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown 12
1 Landscape-based conservation and sustainable resource
use in the developing world: a case study from Sri Lanka
Sanjay Kalpage, John Merson and Daniel Robinson 16
2
Community-based conservation and livelihood strategies for the protection of the snow leopard
(Panthera uncia)
and its ha
bitat in Ladakh, India Vandana Mohindra and
Rinchen Wangchuk 34
3
Evaluation of integrated conservation and development programs (ICDPs) in the protected areas of Bhutan
Karma Tshering, Johannes Bauer and Terry Delacy 55
4 Prospects for ecotourism in Kerala: a review of the Thenmala project
KM Sajad Ibrahim 77
5 Protected areas and conservation landscapes: the case of Ba Be National Park, Vietnam
Robert Nurick and Michael
Dine 95
6
Indigenous land use and conservation in the An angu
lands of central Australia
George R Wilson and Jennifer
Smits 117
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 5 14/11/12 9:14 AM

2 Sustaining Natural Resource Systems 143
Introduction John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown 144
7 The uncertainties and inequalities of groundwater use in
Bangladesh
Crelis Rammelt 147
8
Grain for Green conservation program and farmers’ livelihood development in the Loess Plateau, China
Li Wang, John Merson, Sandy Booth, Yonggong Liu and Xiaoyan
Wang 167
9
Revegetation, bioenergy and sustainable use in the New
South Wales central west
Alex Baumber, John Merson, Mark
Diesendorf and Peter Ampt 186
10
Towards community-based resource management: the development and mobilisation of fisheries resource indicators at Koh Sarai, Thailand
Jawanit Kittitornkool,
Kongkiat Kittiwattawong and Naiyana Srichai 205
3 Conservation and Commercial Use 231 Introduction John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown 232
11 Applying the principles of conservation through
sustainable use to the commercial kangaroo harvest
in New South Wales, Australia
Peter Ampt and Alex
Baumber 235
12
Cats or quolls: can keeping Australian native mammals as pets be a useful conservation strategy?
Rosalie Chapple,
Rosie Cooney, Stephen Jackson and Sarah Doornbos 256
13
Potential gains and challenges from biodiscovery access and benefit-sharing: lessons from case studies and national systems
Daniel Robinson 277
14 The exploitation of non-timber forest products and the plight of tribes in Kerala forests in India
G Gopa Kumar 299
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 6 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Conclusions John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown 316
Notes and references 324
Index 365
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 7 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Acknowledgments
The publication of this book has been possible through the generous
support of a number of individuals and institutions. In particular we’d
like to thank the Institute of Environmental Studies, the Faculty of Science
and the International Office at the University of New South Wales; the
Faculty of Technology and Environment at Prince of Songkla University
in Thailand and Marina Resort in Phuket for hosting the workshop in
2010 which brought together the contributors to this book; also the
University of Kerala in India for their support and enthusiastic engage-
ment with the project. Invaluable administrative and editorial assistance
was also provided by Sarah Terkes, Jane Young and Anne Savage, along
with Jane McCredie and the editorial team at UNSW Press.
viii
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 8 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Foreword
Under any realistic scenario, this century will see dramatic escalation of
the tensions between expanding human use of environmental resources
and their conservation. We have some well-tried and tested tools in the
conservation toolbox – protected areas being (rightly) among them.
But conserving biodiversity and natural resources in ‘used’ landscapes
– within which people live, work and find their livelihood – is an
ongoing and increasingly critical global priority.
If we are to avoid a catastrophe throughout the world’s rural areas
where both biodiversity and people are clinging to existence, then an
accommodation between conservation and development is neither a
choice, nor an optional conservation strategy, but a pragmatic necessity.
It will only be achieved with creative and flexible thinking and a keen
attunement to the nuances of social and cultural context.
This collection of case studies from the Asia–Pacific highlights an
array of regional experiences, offers a wealth of insights into meeting
this enormous challenge, and will, perhaps, provide some evidence and
comfort that conservation and development can indeed be reconciled.
Jon
Hutton
Director, United Nations Environment Programme
1
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 1 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Introduction:
Environmental
conservation and
sustainable use
John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown,
University of New South Wales
This book explores the broad and multifaceted challenges of conservation
and sustainable use of environmental resources in a world of over seven
billion people. In both rural and urban landscapes, communities and
environmental systems face extreme pressure at a wide range of tempo-
ral and spatial scales, under conditions of population growth, climate
change, escalating trade and consumption, and rapid urbanisation.
Traditional conservation approaches have focused on separating
people from nature, most visibly through a long tradition of establishing
formal protected areas that exclude people. However, the most press-
ing challenge for the future lies in reconciling environmental ‘conserva-
tion’ with the sustainable use by people of natural resources, wildlife
and ecosystems. Maintaining biological diversity and ecosystem services
within landscapes – in many cases landscapes in which people live and
use natural resources – raises difficult questions: What, exactly, is to be
conserved? Is use compatible with conservation, and under what circum-
stances? Are trade-offs between conservation and development neces-
sary? And how might we pursue and find the elusive win-win solutions?
Protected
areas
Over the last century there has been a remarkable global growth in the number of formal protected areas, and these now constitute a profoundly
2
Introduction: Environmental conservation and sustainable use
Conservation in a Crowded World
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 2 14/11/12 9:14 AM

important repository of the earth’s biodiversity. They function as a
patchwork of biodiverse islands in landscapes shaped by an increasingly
homogenous pattern of agricultural and industrial production. From
1900 to 1950 around 6000 were created worldwide; by 1960 there were
almost 12
000; and currently in the early twenty-first century there are
almost 160 000 listed in the UNEP-World Database of Protected Areas
(WDPA 2012).
This is a remarkable growth in the effort to protect the globe’s vulner-
able biodiversity, with 36 out of 191 countries having between 10–20 per cent of their land managed as protected areas, and another 24 countries with over 20 per cent. In around a third of all listed protected areas in the late 1990s, local human use of the resources within their boundar- ies was prohibited (Pretty 2002). In the majority of protected areas, some access for local people to use resources has been allowed. Formal protected areas have certainly had success in conserving biodiversity. For instance, a 2001 study of 93 national parks in 22 tropical countries showed that, despite 70 per cent having populations living within them, all fared much better than their surrounding areas in maintaining forest cover (Bruner et al. 2001).
Community-based
conservation
Creating formal, state-run protected areas is not the only successful conservation strategy. The UNEP-World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) is only a record of those areas created by governments, and hence does not include diverse forms of community-based conserva- tion. Estimates suggest that around 11 per cent of the world’s forests are under community management or administration (Molner et al. 2004). Forests under community-based conservation in Africa, Asia and the Americas cover 3.7 million km
2
and are at least as extensive as state
forest protected areas (West & Brockington 2006). The Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas global database lists many locally conserved areas (Cenesta 2009), and stricter state protection is not necessarily better. For example, Porter-Bolland et al. (2011) found that
3Introduction:
Environmental conservation and sustainable use
Introduction: Environmental conservation and sustainable use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 3 14/11/12 9:14 AM

formally-protected areas have higher deforestation rates than commu-
nity-managed areas, highlighting the importance of greater rule-making
autonomy by local communities for both conservation and livelihoods.
In the face of population growth, climate change and globalised
trade and investment, community-based efforts to protect areas of high-
value biodiversity require unprecedented levels of political commitment
and material support by community members, governments, funding
organisations and NGOs to maintain a balance between the extremes
of over-protection and over-use. This requires intensive social negotia-
tions to bring together the interests of a diverse range of stakeholders
in establishing a workable relationship between humans and natural
systems, and determining what constitutes sustainable use of wildlife
and ecosystems.
Sustainable
use
The concepts of sustainability and sustainable use remain ambiguous and controversial, with a wide range of meanings used in diverse contexts (Cooney 2007). The understanding of what ‘sustainable’ means shifts between a tight focus on conservation of particular wildlife species to the opposite extreme – a broad ecosystem approach taking account of social, economic, political and cultural context. The meaning also shifts between biocentric positions that emphasise the intrinsic value of species and biologically diverse ecosystems, to anthropocentric positions privileging the value of biodiversity for servicing human needs. There are further matters of terminology, in particular questions about what is being used. For example, is it ‘wild species’ or ‘wild resources’ or ‘natural resources’, and at what scale does sustainable use operate– from a grain of soil to the entire biosphere (Cooney 2007, pp. 12–35).
Context and purpose are also essential to the meaning of sustain-
able use. To allow and develop the use of species and landscapes can be a matter of rights (for example, the rights of indigenous/traditional peoples); or an imperative for those who rely on use for subsistence; or an optional economic/cultural land use. When use is demonstrated
4 Conservation
in a Crowded World
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 4 14/11/12 9:14 AM

to be sustainable, it can be consistent with conservation objectives.
Indeed, sustainable use can also be understood in some circumstances
as a positive tool for conservation – where the benefits from use motivate
communities, private interests, governments, scientists and others to
invest in monitoring, management and enforced protection of resources
and retention and restoration of habitat (Webb 2002; Hutton & Leader-
Williams 2003).
The complications of achieving sustainability may be summarised in
the following way:
Given that sustainability must be understood as a process
rather than a state, that not only the target resource but
broader ecosystem impacts need to be taken into account, that
sustainability may need to incorporate socio-economic factors
in some way, that sustainable use may be of anything from a
single species to an entire landscape, that uses may be multiple
and of different types, that direct measurements of populations
can be unfeasible and proxies may have to be used, and that a
very large array of factors have been identified as influencing
likely sustainability, it is not surprising that developing ways
to detect whether use should be considered unsustainable or
sustainable is challenging (Cooney 2007, p. 40).
Landscape
and people
Premising conservation on human habitation in landscapes and sustain-
able use of resources is by no means straightforward. Such an approach
challenges long-standing conservationist understandings, and it recon-
figures mainstream western conceptions of the human–nature relation-
ship. As van Oudenhoven et al. (2010, p. 9) note:
Mainstream conservation practice, with a number of notable
exceptions, has failed to internalize the notion that human and
natural systems have often coevolved and that the former may
not necessarily be incompatible with conservation goals. The
old view that nature functions best without the interference of
5Introduction:
Environmental conservation and sustainable use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 5 14/11/12 9:14 AM

humans remains ingrained in the consciousness of ‘Big Conser-
vation’ and this continues to have profound consequences for
the way in which conservation is practiced … This approach
to nature conservation has resulted in a conservation discourse
that is ahistorical (it misrepresents humans’ role in the evolu-
tion of natural systems) and depoliticised (it ignores communi-
ties’ rights to their territories and livelihood resources).
To cite one relevant example of the importance of human involvement,
Pretty (2002, p. 66) explains the role of nomadic pastoralists in the
savannah ecosystem in East Africa. When the Maasai and their cattle
were removed from protected areas there was a significant re-growth
of scrub and woodlands, impacting downwards on the numbers of
antelope and other grazing animals once abundant in these areas. Such
an example begs the questions of what is a natural environment and
where the boundary lies between landscapes that are degraded by over-
use and those that are sustained by appropriate or customary use.
International
efforts: the Convention on Biodiversity
The challenges and complexities of sustainable use have been central to international debate within the United Nations’ Convention on Biodiver- sity (CBD). One of the Convention’s core objectives is sustainable use of biodiversity, and approaches to achieving this objective have been further articulated in the Addis Ababa Principles and Guidelines (AAPG) for the Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (CBD 2004). CBD Parties are exhorted ‘to integrate the Guidelines in the development or review of policies, programs, national legislation and other regulations, sectoral and cross- sectoral plans and programs addressing issues of biological diversity’ (CBD 2004, p. 2). Arguably, making progress on sustainable use of biodiversity is also central to achieving the CBD’s Aichi targets (CBD 2010), the agreed framework for global action to stem biodiversity loss established in 2010 at the Convention’s Conference of the Parties (COP 10) in Nagoya, Japan.
Some of the key concepts reflected in the AAPG for operationalising
sustainable use include the empowerment of local users of biodiversity
6 Conservation
in a Crowded World
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 6 14/11/12 9:14 AM

to be accountable and responsible for that use (AAPG Principle 2); the
need for an interdisciplinary approach that takes social, cultural, politi-
cal and economic factors into consideration in achieving use, involving
local/indigenous people and other stakeholders including the private
sector (AAPG Principle 9); and the importance of reflecting the needs
and contributions of indigenous/local communities, who live with and
are affected by the use and conservation of biological diversity, in the
equitable distribution of the benefits from the use of those resources.
The CBD’s recent Satoyama Initiative squarely addresses the conser-
vation value of managed, human-shaped landscapes in which people
live and find their livelihood (CBD 2010). This initiative, aimed at
benefiting biodiversity and human well-being, proposes a landscape-
oriented and community-based approach to biodiversity conservation
that recognises the value of secondary, human-modified landscapes for
conservation and the potential for rural communities to live in a sustain-
able balance between use and conservation.
There is a great need to understand how principles, such as those
enunciated in international instruments, are being applied – if they are
– and their impact in practice. This volume provides some ‘ground-
truthing’ to assist this. For example, many of the case studies presented
here fit well within the conceptual framework of the Satoyama Initia-
tive, with conservation pursued as part of a dynamic harmony between
human activity and its ecological support system.
Our
case studies and key questions
Originating in a sequence of international research workshops in 2009–10, this book assembles diverse case studies from the Asia–Pacific region, to explore how communities have responded to the challenges of conservation and sustainable use.
1

The chapters cover approaches to rural land use in forest and farming
areas – with conservation of biodiversity through sustainable use as a key objective. They deal with threats to sustainability along the edges of World Heritage areas, including threats from increased incidence of
7Introduction:
Environmental conservation and sustainable use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 7 14/11/12 9:14 AM

drought under climate change scenarios. They cover issues of wildlife
protection in circumstances where the managed use of certain species as
a resource may bring about sustainability of a whole ecosystem, as well
as providing local benefits. And they consider conservation of biodiver-
sity and its interaction with local livelihoods in ‘wild’ places that might
be protected through sustainable ecotourism.
The case studies in this collection have been drawn from Australia,
China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
When the contributors met in July 2010 in Phuket to delineate concepts
and case studies, much discussion centred on a viable framework for
analysing what appeared to be a sprawling field of research and practice.
From this came the three-part structure of the book, which is organised
around three broad questions:
• How can we harmonise the relationships between wildlife
and communities in and around protected areas?
• How can we sustain the natural resource systems used and
relied on by communities?
• Can the relationship between commercial use of species
and ecosystems be compatible with and contribute to their
conservation?
These questions find their foci and responses in different landscapes.
We consider the first question in relation to formal protected areas –
those nuclei of biodiversity; the second takes us outwards to encompass
human managed social-ecological landscapes; and we relate the third
question to landscapes and societies at the broadest scale, to encompass
even activities within urban homes.
Place
and context
An important element of concern for all contributors has been the matter of context – that is, the different political, cultural and economic contexts represented in this volume. This concern is not unusual, and is indeed common among researchers looking at community adaptation to changing environmental and economic circumstances. For example,
8 Conservation in a Crowded World
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 8 14/11/12 9:14 AM

in reviewing much of the theoretical research into adaptation to climate
change, Brunner and Lynch (2010, p. 193) observed that:
[Because] context matters, extensive research cannot provide
a dependable understanding for reducing vulnerabilities in all
local communities, even if it is billed as globally comprehen-
sive. Too much of importance is left out.
In other words, local culture, values and politics matter as much as
ecological and scientific knowledge in advancing conservation and
social outcomes. The ‘political ecology’ operating at the local level
largely shapes how different communities will respond to environmen-
tal change. This means that policymakers at a national and international
level need to recognise that ‘context matters’ and that environmental
governance needs to be flexible and adaptive to local and regional
circumstances.
However, as the preparations for this book confirmed, when
governments enact protected area legislation, often the template has
been drawn from protected areas in those developed countries that
have extensive lightly populated ‘wilderness’ areas, such as the United
States, Australia, Canada and Russia. This may not be appropriate for
densely populated and developing regions where the bulk of the globe’s
biodiversity is to be found, such as in Asia, Africa and South America.
In many of these regions, human use of natural resources, from forest
to marine, has been an integral characteristic of wider ecosystems.
In Europe also there are few ‘wilderness’ areas or even large complex
ecosystems that have not been shaped by human use, and remnant
biodiversity is part of a wider landscape that includes agricultural or
urban environmental systems.
The case studies in this volume reinforce the importance of place-
based and community-level deliberative processes and solutions, and
they indicate the diversity of management responses needed from both
governments and communities. The case studies explore a wide range of
conceptual and definitional issues, while highlighting the value of new
9Introduction:
Environmental conservation and sustainable use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 9 14/11/12 9:14 AM

context-dependent practical approaches. They do this without propos-
ing any one model for conservation and sustainable use, though they
do represent a pool of experience and ideas of international relevance.
We have aimed to show specific communities’ efforts to reconcile
what are frequently seen as inevitable trade-offs between conservation
and economic/social development. It is our hope that the book will
provide some further insight into how potentially competing goals can
be reconciled through localised adaptive processes. There is rarely, if
ever, a one-size-fits-all solution, and generally there is a need for fewer
overarching regulatory or management assumptions on the part of
government agencies, and more attention given to local values, knowl-
edge and context.
10 Conservation
in a Crowded World
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 10 14/11/12 9:14 AM

1
Wildlife,
communities
and protected
areas
11
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 11 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Introduction
This section of the book examines the conceptual challenges, conflicts,
practical problems and lessons evident from the twentieth-century
experience in using protected areas legislation to effect conservation.
The complexity of the relationship between people, places and wildlife
is a key dimension of the six case studies in this section. Many problems
arise from ill-considered attempts to delineate artificial boundar-
ies between human activity and wildlife domains, and solutions lie in
adaptive measures which re-integrate these, recognising that people and
landscapes are inextricably linked. The need to take a broad landscape
perspective is a common theme across the case studies, with recogni-
tion that, despite all good intentions, a formal Protected Area may not
achieve the full range of conservation objectives.
This problem can be identified in the south of Sri Lanka, where the
lack of an appropriate landscape-scale approach to land management
has led to major problems for both wildlife and people. Kalpage et al.
(Chapter 1) use the case of wild elephant management in Sri Lanka’s
south to show how the practice of managing elephant habitat in an
administratively fragmented way exacerbates human–elephant conflict.
The majority of elephant populations are found outside protected areas,
but this is also where economic development and traditional agriculture
are taking place. However, traditional shifting or seasonal farmers of the
region use key areas of habitat only in the wet season to grow cash crops,
whereas in the dry season the areas are not used for farming and are
the preferred habitat of elephants. Recognising and enabling this dual
land use could provide a win-win for both elephants and traditional
communities. The case provides an example of management involving
multiple land uses, addressing the socio-economic interests of tradi-
tional communities and the habitat needs of wildlife, while maintaining
an effective buffer zone for vulnerable high-value conservation areas.
Complexities of managing the human and wildlife interface are also
found in the case of the snow leopards in the Ladakh region of north-
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas12
Wildlife, communities and protected areas
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 12 14/11/12 9:14 AM

ern India, as Wangchuk and Mohindra explain in Chapter 2. Over the
past few decades the snow leopard population of the high Himalayan
plateau has been in decline due to conflict with human population in the
region. Grazing competition in the grassland between native blue sheep
(bharal) and goats, and domestic herds, has led to a decline in the native
species that are prey for the leopards. As a consequence, the leopards
have been forced to feed on domestic sheep and cattle, and are thus
being hunted and killed by the local villagers. A project was started in
the 1990s to reverse this trend, beginning with the building of covered
pens to protect the domestic herds at night and the establishment of a
compensation fund for the loss of stock. These funds were made avail-
able on condition that villagers would not kill the leopards, and over the
past two decades the shooting of leopards has largely ceased and their
numbers have stabilised. A program of ecotourism has also been estab-
lished, associated with the snow leopard program, bringing additional
economic development to the region. Strategies such as this which
address the local drivers of decline, through recognising and addressing
community needs and priorities, are critical for achieving conservation
of high-end predators such as the snow leopard while supporting the
livelihoods of local village communities.
The issues raised in the first two chapters arise from efforts to
conserve iconic species, but they are also relevant for the conservation
of whole ecosystems and landscapes. In Bhutan, a large proportion of
the country is designated as protected areas, and in most of these areas
communities of farmers and herders live within park boundaries. This
arrangement is based on an assumed compatibility between conserva-
tion goals and the needs of local populations. However, this does not
resolve political conflicts over economic development and changing uses
of these natural resources, as Karma Tshering et al. discuss in Chapter 3.
Many efforts have been made to reconcile economic development with
conservation in these areas, under the rubric of integrated conservation
and development projects (ICDPs). This chapter examines the efficacy
of such ICDP activities for biodiversity conservation, finding that many
13Wildlife,
communities and protected areas
Wildlife, communities and protected areas
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 13 14/11/12 9:14 AM

of these interventions are unlikely to be having any positive impact on
conservation, and highlights the importance and potential of ecotour-
ism as a strategy for reconciling these imperatives.
Sajad Ibrahim in Chapter 4 assesses the Kerala government’s efforts
to establish a model form of sustainable tourism through the Thenmala
Ecotourism Project, based around the Shenduruney Wildlife Sanctuary
in India. The goal of this project was to involve the community in three
types of tourism: eco-friendly tourism, ecotourism ‘proper’ and pilgrim-
age tourism. However, the pressures arising from increased visitation,
the level of visitor dissatisfaction with information and infrastructure,
and the low level of local benefits suggest that to date Thenmala fails to
qualify as ecotourism. Some of the reasons for this include the lack of
involvement of the local community, failures of governance, and the lack
of a common understanding of sustainability and responsible tourism
inside government and between stakeholders.
The challenges of reconciling changing land uses, conflicting commu-
nity values and biodiversity conservation have often been overlooked in
relation to the management of protected areas and their buffer zones, as
Nurick and Dine (Chapter 5) discuss in relation to the Ba Be Lake area of
northern Vietnam. Over the past couple of decades, population growth
through migration into the region has put pressure on natural resources.
This has led to an understandable focus on conservation policies based
on strict exclusion from parts of the protected area. However, Nurick
and Dine’s study shows that the creation of exclusion zones prohibit-
ing local communities’ access to traditional forest resources, alongside
interventions to support agricultural intensification, has had complex
conservation and livelihood impacts, including illegal use in exclu-
sion zones and over-exploitation of water and land in the surround-
ing buffer zones. Exclusionary interventions have ignored the feedback
mechanisms by which the unsustainable use of land and water within
the buffer zone impacts on the protected area. The area is experienc-
ing ongoing deforestation, landslides, ongoing siltation of the lake, and
declining fish populations and water quality due to a high nutrient
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas14
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 14 14/11/12 9:14 AM

run-off from agricultural fertiliser and irrigation. The authors call for
the implementation of strategies that genuinely seek ‘double sustain-
ability’, in which a poverty-reduction agenda is fully integrated with
biodiversity conservation goals.
The final chapter in this section focuses on an example of commu-
nity empowerment and conservation through supporting rights and
capacity of indigenous people to manage land and resources. Wilson
and Smits (Chapter 6) have worked with the Aboriginal traditional
owners of Angas Downs station in Central Australia, who have estab-
lished an Indigenous protected area on their property. The An angu, the
traditional owners, are making use of western science in conjunction
with Indigenous traditional knowledge to control feral animals, restore
and reintroduce native ecosystems and species, monitor landscape
health and generate income for the community. Land management here
draws on and enables communities to strengthen cultural linkages to
land and wildlife.
John Merson, Rosie Cooney and Paul Brown
15Wildlife,
communities and protected areas
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 15 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Landscape-based conservation and sustainable resource use
1
Landscape-based
conservation and
sustainable resource
use in the developing
world: a case study
from Sri Lanka
Sanjay Kalpage, John Merson and Daniel
Robinson, University of New South Wales
I
ntroduction
Protected areas (PAs) – such as nature reserves and national parks –
have been a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation since the late
nineteenth century (Bengtsson et al. 2003; Dudley et al. 2005). Unfor-
tunately, several studies have revealed significant gaps in their cover-
age – for example, Rodrigues et al. (2004) demonstrate that endemic
species are under-represented, while Schmitt et al. (2009) show that
the coverage of tropical forests is especially poor. Moreover, Margules
and Pressey (2000, p. 243) describe how issues such as deforestation in
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas16
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 16 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Landscape-based conservation and sustainable resource use
areas surrounding PAs and the spread of invasive species into reserves
erode the ability of PAs ‘to promote the long term survival of the biodi-
versity they contain’.
Critics have also raised potential problems with two fundamental
concepts that underlie the ‘traditional’ approach to conservation that
led to the creation of most of the world’s PAs: (1) the idea of nature
as static and (2) the view that people are separate from nature (Fisher
2008, pp. 18–19).
The idea that nature exists at or near a static equilibrium condi-
tion translated into the view that in order to conserve nature it must
be maintained in (or returned to) an unchanging ‘pristine’ condi-
tion (Gunderson & Holling 2002; Bengtsson et al. 2003). This view
minimised the importance of the interaction of these wilderness areas
with the overall landscape surrounding them, and as a result landscape
management in general, and conservation in particular, have been
historically approached from the scientific tradition of reductionist
thinking whereby each landscape component was considered in isola-
tion (Maginnis et al. 2004). Reductionism is a way of understanding
complex things (for example, objects, phenomena, theories) by break-
ing them up into a set of small, easy-to-understand elements. This
approach has been applied widely to land-use planning, where land is
discretely and rigidly compartmentalised according to its functionality
or use. Consequently, wildlife has been corralled into PAs chosen for a
number of reasons: sometimes on the basis of biological importance,
but often because the land was of no interest to anyone with power or
influence (Maginnis et al. 2004, p. 322). This approach has resulted
in many PAs becoming ‘islands in an intensively managed landscape’
where many of the land-use practices may negatively impact biodiver-
sity within the PAs (Siegfried et al. 1998; Bengtsson et al. 2003, p. 389).
For example, pesticides used in agriculture in surrounding areas may
enter reserves through natural processes such as the water cycle, or
invasive species can spread into a PA from adjacent areas (Harvey et al.
2008; Chazdon et al. 2009).
17Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 17 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Supporters of the traditional approach to conservation have typically
assumed that humans need to be excluded from PAs because they have
a negative influence on the landscape. This has sometimes led to the
physical displacement of local people and restriction of their customary
access to resources (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2004; Agarwal & Redford
2009; Dowie 2009). This raises issues of equity, since as Adams et al.
(2004, p. 1146) point out, ‘the eviction of former occupiers or right
holders in land and resources, can cause the exacerbation of poverty
as well as the contravention of legal or human rights’. Moreover, the
marginalisation of local communities may be shortsighted from a
conservation perspective. In India, Nagendra et al. (2006) describe how
the denial of traditional access to forest products to villagers living near
a tiger reserve led to increased poaching and the extraction of timber
within the park.
This chapter proposes a ‘landscape-based’ approach to address these
deficiencies of the traditional approach to conservation, and explores
its practical application to elephant conservation in south-eastern Sri
Lanka. A possible mechanism to share forested land between elephants
and farmers is discussed, and the potential impacts of this approach
on key stakeholder groups are outlined. The aim is to ensure that local
communities and government policymakers obtain tangible benefits
from the conservation of both forested land and elephants. Such incen-
tives to conserve these resources are in accordance with the principles
of ‘sustainable use’ of biodiversity, an approach endorsed by leading
conservation organisations such as the IUCN.
1
Finally, the potential for
wider application of this approach within Sri Lanka and in other devel-
oping countries is discussed.
A
n alternative approach:
landscape-based conservation
Given the above deficiencies of the traditional approach to conservation and its underlying assumptions, several conservationists have proposed
Wildlife, communities and protected areas18
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 18 14/11/12 9:14 AM

a more holistic approach that addresses conservation at the scale of
the whole landscape (Sanderson et al. 2002; Velázquez et al. 2009).
Sanderson et al. (2002, p. 41) characterise a landscape-based approach
as follows:
Parks and reserves can effectively protect some elements of
biodiversity and contribute to the conservation of nature, but
often, strict protection is not possible over sufficient areas.
As a result virtually all PAs are embedded in a landscape in
which natural resource exploitation of multiple types occurs.
Effective biodiversity conservation must therefore integrate
use and protection across the landscape. For landscape scale
conservation to be socially as well as ecologically sustainable,
these strategies must succeed in a mosaic of different land uses
that not only conserves biodiversity, but also allows people to
make a living.
In this context, it is important to define the term ‘landscape’, since it
is often interpreted differently by different people (Phillips and IUCN
World Commission on Protected Areas 2002). We will use the defini-
tion of landscape proposed by Sayer et al. (2007, p. 2679): ‘a geograph-
ical construct that includes not only the biophysical components of an
area but also social, political, psychological and other components of
that system’.
The landscape approach appreciates the inability of the current PA
network alone to protect a significant portion of global biodiversity, and
attempts to address several key deficiencies of the traditional approach
to conservation. In particular, instead of operating from the premises
that nature is static, and rigidly compartmentalising types of land use, it
considers the relationships among land uses across the entire landscape.
It adopts a systems-based approach that acknowledges that nature is
dynamic. Instead of viewing people as apart from nature and necessarily
detrimental to it, it explicitly considers the interactions between people
and nature within the landscape and looks for possibilities of sustain-
able use of natural resources.
19Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 19 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Applying the landscape approach:
conservation of the Asian elephant
in Sri Lanka
Although several international conservation organisations, including the
World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the IUCN,
are increasingly adopting landscape-based approaches, this concept is
still being fine-tuned (Didier et al. 2009; Morrison et al. 2009). There is
an imperative to explore its application in practical situations to better
understand its complexities and the potential pitfalls in its implementa-
tion. With this in mind, a landscape approach is now applied to elephant
conservation in Sri Lanka. In order to keep the analysis manageable, it
is focused on a specific landscape where rapid development is requiring
policymakers to make difficult decisions regarding land use.
Overview
of Sri Lanka’s biodiversity and conservation
landscape
Sri Lanka is an island located at the tip of southern India. Despite its relatively small size (65
610 km
2
) the country has a wealth of biodi-
versity, and has been designated as one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots (Mittermeier et al. 2004). It has high levels of endemism but, unfortunately, much of Sri Lanka’s biodiversity is under threat – with the main drivers of biodiversity loss being habitat degradation, over- exploitation of species, spread of invasive alien species and pollution (IUCN Sri Lanka 2007).
The key agency responsible for managing Sri Lanka’s biodiversity is
the Department of Wildlife Conservation, which manages a network of national parks and sanctuaries covering about 14 per cent of the country’s land area. In addition, the Forest Department manages forest reserves comprising about 23 per cent of the country’s land area. Despite the significant amount of land devoted to conservation, much of Sri Lanka’s biodiversity lies outside these areas (Jayasooriya et al. 2006). A key example is the Asian elephant (see Plate 1), which ranges exten-
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas20
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 20 14/11/12 9:14 AM

sively outside the PA network (Groom et al. 2006). It is therefore impor-
tant that conservation efforts are not limited to this network, but target
the entire landscape.
The Asian elephant in Sri Lanka
The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is Sri Lanka’s flagship species (IUCN Sri Lanka 2007). Throughout recorded history – that is, as far back as the sixth century BC – the elephant has played a special role in Sri Lanka’s culture, religion and folklore. Elephant conservation is also important from an ecological perspective, as the Asian elephant is listed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2009).
Sri Lanka’s approximately 4800 elephants comprise about 10 per
cent of the estimated global population of 40
000–50 000 animals
(IUCN 2009). They are distributed throughout the country’s dry zone,

with significant concentrations in the south-east, north-east and north- west (de Silva & de Silva 2007). Sri Lanka has two main zones based on rainfall. The wet zone is located in the south-west corner of the country, while most of the rest is considered the dry zone (with an intermediate zone sometimes being defined between them). Although Sri Lanka’s PA network is important for elephant conservation, a significant proportion of the animals live outside reserves, and even elephants found within the PA network range outside them, especially in the dry season (Santiapil- lai et al. 2010, p. 21).
The main threat to Sri Lanka’s elephants is a reduction of their
habitat resulting from a combination of deforestation, expansion of agriculture and human population growth, which in turn has resulted in an escalating human–elephant conflict (Santiapillai et al. 2006). (Since only about 7 per cent of male elephants in Sri Lanka have tusks, poaching is a not a significant issue: Fernando et al. 2005). Around 75 people and over 200 elephants die each year in the conflict that arises when elephants, faced with dwindling habitats, raid crops (Santiapillai et al. 2010; Yatawara 2010).
21Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 21 14/11/12 9:14 AM

The Sri Lankan government dedicates much effort and many
resources toward resolving this conflict (Bhattacharjya 2010). The
2006 National Policy for the Conservation and Management of Wild
Elephants states that the conflict is ‘the most serious problem facing
elephant conservation in Sri Lanka’ and ‘it is leading in just one direc-
tion; to the eventual destruction and elimination of elephants from
non-conservation areas, and to the loss of crops, property and human
lives’ (Government of Sri Lanka 2006, section 2). It has been estimated
that the Department of Wildlife spends more than 50 per cent of its
time and budget on mitigating the conflict, a percentage which is
unlikely to reduce in the near future (Yatawara 2011). Policymak-
ers are also recognising the tremendous potential of nature tourism
based around charismatic species such as elephants and leopards as
the country recovers from the 26-year-long civil conflict which ended
in 2009 (Miththapala 2010).
Given the ecological and conservation benefits of elephants, their
importance from a cultural perspective, and the growing human–
elephant conflict, it is important that Sri Lanka quickly develops a
coherent policy for elephant conservation within the broader landscape.
The feasibility of applying such a landscape-scale approach within the
country’s south-eastern region is now explored.
Sri Lanka’s south-east region
Overview
Sri Lanka’s south-east region comprises the districts of Hambantota,
Ampara and Monaragala, covering an area of 12
226 km
2
, equivalent to
19 per cent of the country’s land area (Department of Census & Statistics 2011). It is relatively sparsely populated – containing only 8 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population – and has been under-developed historically, as evident from data on literacy rates and the percentage of poor house- holds, compared with the national averages (Department of Census & Statistics 2011).
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas22
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 22 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Land use
The south-east contains prime agricultural areas especially suitable for
rice production. A large proportion of people are dependent on farming,
and the three districts produce about 27 per cent of the country’s paddy
harvest although comprising only 19 per cent of the country’s land area
(Department of Census & Statistics 2011, Tables 5.2, 5.4).
On forested land, farmers practise shifting agriculture or chena, a
land-use method dating back centuries (World Bank 2009).
2
This form
of agriculture is currently the main form of land use in elephant habitat
which lies outside PAs but is contiguous to parks, most of which falls
under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department (Campos-Arceiz et al.
2009). In traditional chena, a patch of forest, usually about a hectare, is
cleared, burned and cultivated annually during the rainy season only,
for about three or four years (see Plate 2). Because no artificial fertilis-
ers are used, the soil condition in the patch deteriorates in time and is
abandoned (Fernando et al. 2006). Farmers return to formerly cultivated
patches only after about 20 years, by which time they are reforested.
Typical crops include maize, sorghum, green gram, soy bean, chilli,
tomato, onion, watermelon and banana (de Silva & de Silva 2007).
Present-day chena cultivation is slightly different from the traditional
practice, as the increasing scarcity of forest land means that farmers
cultivate more or less permanent plots (de Silva & de Silva 2007).
However, they still do so only during the rainy season, leaving the land
fallow during the dry season that comprises 5–6 months of the year.
They usually clear away only bushes, leaving taller trees intact, and their
use of fertiliser is generally less than in other forms of agriculture (Geiser
1995). Chena farmers are among the poorest groups of people in Sri
Lanka’s south-east (de Silva & de Silva 2007). As government forest
land is utilised for chena cultivation, the practice is technically illegal,
but social norms and customs dictate recognition of pre-existing family
rights (World Bank 2009).
Given the region’s relative under-development, a number of state-
led large-scale development projects have been established there over
23Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 23 14/11/12 9:14 AM

the last few years. These include a new international port, a new inter-
national airport, rural electrification schemes, a road rehabilitation
program and multipurpose irrigation schemes. These activities have
acquired a sense of urgency given that the leaders of the ruling politi-
cal party, who are from the Hambantota district, want to cater to their
political constituents.
3

National
parks and elephant habitat
The south-east contains several national parks and a considerable area under forest cover. The Department of Wildlife Conservation manages an area of over 400
000 hectares, including seven national parks and
eight sanctuaries. The largest and most significant is the country’s oldest

and best-known PA – Ruhunu National Park (Uragoda 1994). About 45 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total elephant population of about 4800 is found in the south-east (de Silva & de Silva 2007). The Forest Depart- ment manages many areas outside PAs that contain important elephant habitat (Jayasooriya et al. 2006).
Human–elephant
conflict in south-east Sri Lanka
There has been escalating human–elephant conflict in the south-east in recent years (Santiapillai et al. 2010). Campos-Arceiz et al. (2009) conducted a detailed study of the conflict and recorded 975 incidents in the region from June 2004 to May 2005.
4
Crop damage was the most
commonly recorded type of incident, being present in 92 per cent of cases. House damage accounted for 11 per cent of the incidents
5
, as
elephants attacked houses to consume stored foods such as paddy rice, and 22 attacks on humans were recorded, comprising 3 per cent of the incidents (Campos-Arceiz et al. 2009). Most crop raiding was done at night, by male elephants. Based on this and similar results from other studies in India, the authors believe that male elephants who are solitary, or move around in groups of two to three, are more willing to engage in this type of risky behaviour compared to females who are gener- ally found in herds containing calves.
6
However they do point out that
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas24
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 24 14/11/12 9:14 AM

herds may start raiding crops in highly fragmented landscapes where
resources are extremely limited (Campos-Arceiz et al. 2009).
Elephant impacts on people in the south-east are both serious and
likely to increase significantly. Currently, the south-east suffers a relatively
small proportion of Sri Lanka’s human–elephant conflict, accounting
for roughly 20 per cent of recorded human deaths and injuries despite
containing about 45 per cent of the elephant population (de Silva &
de Silva 2007). Unfortunately, the conflict is expected to grow drasti-
cally with the spread of irrigated agriculture and reduction of elephant
habitat, as has been the case in the north-east and north-west of the
country
7
(de Silva & de Silva 2007).
Mitigation
measures
Since crop raiding generally takes place at night, farmers keep watch from dusk till dawn (see Plate 3). When elephants arrive, the people attempt to drive them away by shouting, wielding firebrands and lighting fire-crackers (Perera 2009). Although this strategy tended to prevent large-scale crop damage in the past, the elephants have now become habituated to such measures and are more desperate since food is less abundant elsewhere, especially in the dry season. As marauding elephants destroy their crops and put their livelihoods at risk, farmers retaliate, often using cruel means – for example, using poison concealed in palatable fruits such as pineapples to kill the elephants (Santiapillai et al. 2010).
The government’s approach – consisting of translocating problem
animals, conducting elephant drives to move animals into PAs, and using electric fences to confine elephants to parks – has largely been ineffective (Santiapillai et al. 2010). Translocation has failed due to difficulties in identifying problem animals since crop-raiding generally takes place at night, combined with the high cost of translocating an elephant, and the tendency of translocated elephants to return to their former ranges (Fernando et al. 2008). Elephant drives have stressed the animals, making them even more aggressive towards humans, and often
25Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 25 14/11/12 9:14 AM

fail to remove the real trouble-makers, the adult males that are respon-
sible for most of the conflict, and have proved prohibitively costly
(Rodrigo 2011).
8
Although the use of electric fences has been effective
in some areas, flaws in their design, structure and maintenance often
allow elephants to breach them (Fernando et al. 2008). Perhaps even
more crucial is their location, as several fences erected on the boundar-
ies of national parks have elephants on both sides due to the animals’
wide-ranging behaviour, and hence do not prevent those outside the
fence raiding crops (Fernando et al. 2008). Furthermore, since electric
fences are also established in an ad hoc manner in elephant habitat
outside national parks, their access to food and water sources in these
areas has become restricted
9
(Fernando et al. 2005; Gunaratne &
Premarathne 2006).
The root cause of the failure of these government interventions can be
seen as their reliance on a traditional approach to conservation, based on
a static view of nature, and the idea that people are separate from nature.
First, land-use planning and management in Sri Lanka is compart-
mentalised and lacks cohesiveness and a systems-based approach. Land
is divided into various rigid and discrete categories which fail to recog-
nise the underlying ecological reality – such as ‘urban land’, ‘paddy land’,
‘forest land’ and ‘national parks’. These are managed by different depart-
ments and/or ministries who typically do not consult each other when
developing land-use policies (Dalal-Clayton & Dent 2001). Elephant
conservation and mitigation of human–elephant conflict are viewed
as the sole responsibility of the Department of Wildlife Conservation,
whose jurisdiction is limited to the country’s PA system (Jayasooriya et
al. 2006). However, since an estimated 70 per cent of elephant habitat
lies outside the PA network, this means the Department of Wildlife only
has jurisdiction over 30 per cent of the entire range of elephants in the
country (Santiapillai et al. 2010).
Second, as pointed out by Santiapillai et al. (2006, p. 95), ‘conserva-
tion measures to date have mainly depended on legislative protection of
the species and reservation of habitat – essentially keeping people and
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas26
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 26 14/11/12 9:14 AM

elephants apart’, in accordance with the traditional view that people are
separate from nature. The current approach does not adequately take into
the account the fact that elephants, even those generally living in PAs,
range outside these areas, and that the costs are incurred by people who
live within elephant habitat outside PAs. Although the government has
launched some compensation schemes to address the damage elephants
cause, to date these unfortunately have not been successfully implemented.
The landscape approach in practice:
impacts and implications
Given the deficiencies of the current approach to elephant conservation
in south-eastern Sri Lanka, a more holistic, landscape-based approach
may be more effective. This section outlines a new strategy which
involved the sharing of resources among the stakeholders, and draws
on recent research on elephant behaviour.
Key
stakeholder groups and their requirements
A key question that needs to be addressed in trying to mitigate the human–elephant conflict is how resources can be used to meet the needs of the three main stakeholder groups: elephants, government policymakers and farmers. Each of the groups currently faces difficul- ties in meeting their specific requirements.
Chena farmers are currently the most affected local community,
although with the spread of irrigation agriculture into elephant habitats other farmers are beginning to be affected as well (Campos-Arceiz et al. 2009). The main need of this group is land to cultivate chenas during the rainy season. The main difficulty they face is the threat to their crops and themselves from elephants. Also, although for the time being the government turns a blind eye to their illegal use of state land, they would presumably like to have more secure rights to the land they cultivate.
The main need of the elephants is habitat with adequate food and
water resources; their main issues are dwindling habitat and conflict with humans, where they are inevitably the losers.
27Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 27 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Policymakers responsible for the management of land that contains
elephant habitat would like these areas to generate economic revenue,
especially given the increasing need of land for agriculture and infra-
structure development. The human–elephant conflict has become a
politically sensitive issue for the government as it tries to balance the
complaints of villagers who live with elephants against the needs of local
and international conservationists and people in the rest of the country,
many of whom demand the protection of this national icon (Bandara &
Tisdell 2004).
Sharing
resources among key stakeholder groups
A group of Sri Lankan elephant experts has proposed a method to share resources between elephants and farmers based on over ten years of field research on elephant ranging patterns using radio telemetry, which has yielded three main insights (Fernando et al. 2005).
Elephants range extensively outside reserves
Sri Lankan elephants range extensively outside national parks and reserves, some of them having home ranges that are entirely outside the PA network (Fernando et al. 2005; Santiapillai et al. 2006). Since they use their habitat fairly intensively – generally making maximum use of available food and water resources – such habitat must be conserved both within and outside the reserves. This implies that the current practice of translocating animals into parks is likely be extremely harmful, since these PAs are probably already close to their carrying capacities (Fernando et al. 2008).
Elephant ranges are small, but elephants show high
fidelity to these ranges
The observed home range sizes were 34–232 km
2
(Fernando et al.
2008). In comparison, home ranges 3–5 times larger have been recorded in similar studies conducted in southern India. Elephants show high fidelity to their home ranges, possibly because this enables them to be familiar with the distribution and fluctuations in resource availability in
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas28
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 28 14/11/12 9:14 AM

these areas (Fernando et al. 2008). As familiarity with their home ranges
may be an important fitness trait for elephants, translocation may be
detrimental to their survival.
Elephants extensively utilise lands under chena
cultivation, especially in the dry season
Contrary to popular belief, chena cultivation is not harmful to elephants since, as it is currently practised, cultivation is limited to the rainy season and abandoned patches are allowed to regenerate during the dry season. The resulting landscape matrix of vegetation patches in various stages of succession provides optimal elephant habitat. Elephants largely use chena land during the dry season, when the fields are fallow. During the wet season, when the fields are cultivated, they are able to find food elsewhere, within the reserve network and in forested land outside the PA system. Hence there is the opportunity to use this traditional land- use method to maintain suitable elephant habitat.
Landscape-based land-use planning
In order to implement a landscape-based approach, it is proposed that three zones of land use are delineated across the landscape: ‘human habitat’ from which elephants are excluded, such as towns, urban areas and irrigated/permanent agriculture; ‘managed elephant ranges’ (MERs) on land in elephant habitat outside reserves, where elephants coexist with chena farmers; and PAs which conform to the current network of
national parks and sanctuaries. MERs and PAs would be contiguous, while electric fences would be constructed on the ecological boundar- ies between human habitat and MERs (Groom et al. 2006). Temporary electric fences would be constructed around chenas within MERs in the wet season when they are under cultivation; these would be taken down once crops are harvested to allow elephants access to the regenerating scrub forest in the plots. This is different from the current approach of building permanent electric fences in a largely haphazard manner, restricting access to food and water resources, especially in habitat which lies outside PAs (Fernando et al. 2006).
10

29Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 29 14/11/12 9:14 AM

The approach would drastically reduce the need for translocation
and elephant drives, although problem animals that stray into areas
designated as human habitat would have to be moved back into MERs.
Furthermore, the human–elephant conflict would be reduced, because
elephants would have better access to resources in areas outside PAs,
especially in the dry season.
11
Perhaps even more importantly, an escala-
tion of the conflict would be averted. As pointed out previously, while
current levels of conflict are relatively low in the south-east, this is
expected to increase drastically if more elephant habitat is taken over by
development activities and permanent irrigated agriculture.
Impacts
on stakeholders
Elephants
The approach would help elephants since some of their key habitat will be preserved within MERs. Furthermore, they would have unhindered access to key food resources in the dry season, when fodder is scarce elsewhere, since most of the electric fences within their habitat would be taken down or disabled during that period.
Government policymakers
The proposed approach is likely to reduce the human–elephant conflict, a key issue faced by government policymakers. However, steps must be taken to make the proposed MERs economically viable to help convince policymakers to designate land for this purpose, as there are many competing demands for land.
One possible activity is to encourage nature-based tourism within
MERs, centred around elephant viewing. This could include high-end camping safaris as well as small-scale eco-friendly lodges in these areas, from which the government could derive user fees and tax revenues. There are numerous examples that indicate that tourism based on large charismatic species can be a profitable form of land use (Walpole & Leader-Williams 2002; Bothma et al. 2009; Johnson et al. 2009).
There is also the possibility of obtaining carbon credits for avoided
deforestation through a REDD-type scheme (UN-REDD Programme
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas30
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 30 14/11/12 9:14 AM

2009).
12
It is important to keep in mind, however, that since the inter-
national process for awarding carbon credits for avoided deforestation
(that is, this type of case) is still being worked out, these credits cannot
be claimed immediately. However, voluntary markets for carbon credits
are up and running and there have been some REDD-type examples
from Indonesia and South America (Walsh 2008; Marshall 2009;
Banyan 2011).
Government policymakers should be concerned to safeguard the
various environmental services – such as watershed protection and
mitigation of soil erosion and nutrient loss from soil – provided by
MERs (World Bank 2009). The benefits from these services are likely
to be highly significant, given the findings of several studies that have
attempted to quantify ecosystem services in various parts of Sri Lanka,
including the south-east (Emerton & Kekulandala 2003; Emerton 2005;
Wattage & Mardle 2008).
Farmers
It is important that the local people who coexist with elephants, such as chena farmers and villagers who live within or adjacent to MERs, benefit economically from the presence of these animals, or at the very least do not suffer losses. Thus comprehensive compensation and insurance schemes should be introduced, because although the human–elephant conflict will be reduced, inevitably there will still be some crop raiding by solitary bulls.
Policy reform, and possibly legal reform, is required to make chena
cultivation a legitimate land-management regime. This will have to be accompanied by policies regulating chena cultivation in the relevant forest areas, which should be developed in consultation with stake- holders such as farmers, local communities and conservationists. A more stable land tenure system would be provided for chena farmers on condition that they refrain from environmentally harmful practices such as the excessive use of chemical fertilisers. This is in line with some co-management approaches advocated by conservationists in which
31Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 31 14/11/12 9:14 AM

communities are granted tenurial rights in exchange for their commit-
ment to observe certain rules and restrictions in the exercise of those
rights (Barber et al. 2004, p. 115).
In addition, some of the tourism benefits from the MERs should be
shared with locals. There are several potential mechanisms for doing this.
One way is to encourage tourism operators within MERs to contribute
to local development. For example, a private camp near South Africa’s
Addo Elephant National Park has specifically allocated a percentage of
its turnover to support a local community trust fund (Castley et al. 2009,
p. 316). Another possibility is establishing a government-administered
levy, incorporated into the legal framework governing MERs. A potential
model is the imposition by India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests
of a ‘conservation levy’ on all privately-run tourist facilities within 5
kilometres of the boundary of a PA to fund park management, conserva-
tion and local livelihood development (Government of India 2011, p. 6).
C
onclusions
This case study illustrates some of the issues resulting from a tradi- tional reductionist approach to conservation that perceives nature as static and views people as apart from nature. Sri Lanka’s current approach to elephant conservation – which focuses on trying to restrict elephants to the country’s PA system without adequately taking into account their ranging behaviour within the overall ecosystem – has been largely ineffective.
The use of a landscape-based approach informed by a detailed
understanding of elephant behaviour has been suggested as an alter- native strategy for elephant conservation in south-eastern Sri Lanka, where MERs are created in elephant habitat outside, but contiguous to, the current PA network. In the MERs, farmers who cultivate patches of land using a traditional chena system in the wet season could share these resources with elephants in the dry season, when the land is left fallow. This type of land use could provide economic benefits
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas32
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 32 14/11/12 9:14 AM

to the government authorities that have jurisdiction over the land,
through initiatives such as elephant-based nature tourism and obtain-
ing carbon credits for avoided deforestation. Furthermore, the land
set aside as MERs would provide habitat for many other species apart
from elephants and help achieve a much better level of biodiversity
conservation compared with other less environmentally-friendly land-
uses such as irrigated agriculture.
This approach could be extended to develop a set of MERs cover-
ing the entire island. If better resource sharing can be achieved in the
north-east and north-west, where the human–elephant conflict is more
intense than in the south-east, there will be tremendous benefits for
farmers, the government and, of course, the elephants. While differ-
ences in land use and sociological factors must be taken into account,
the solution ultimately lies in promoting better resource sharing among
farmers and elephants and ensuring that local communities receive
some of the benefits associated with elephants, such as proceeds from
nature tourism.
This approach can also be adapted to alleviate the human–elephant
conflict in nearby countries. As Fernando et al. (2005, p. 2466) point
out, ‘with over two thirds of Asian elephant habitat in non-conservation
areas, the human–elephant conflict represents a widespread, complex
and intractable challenge to conservation and is the major threat to
elephants across their range’. The landscape-based approach outlined
here offers valuable insights for potential resource-sharing arrangements
between people and elephants that will help mitigate the conflict in
neighbouring countries such as India.
33Landscape-based
conservation and sustainable resource use
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 33 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Community-based conservation for the protection of the snow leopard
2
Community-based
conservation and
livelihood strategies
for the protection
of the snow leopard
(Panthera uncia) and
its habitat in Ladakh,
India
Vandana Mohindra and Rinchen Wangchuk,
Snow Leopard Conservancy Trust, India
1

Introduction
India’s first protected area, Hailey National Park (now the Jim Corbett
National Park), was established in 1936 to protect the endangered
Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). By 1970, another four parks had
been declared and today, the formal protected area (PA) network has
over 600 reserves, covering approximately 4.8 per cent of the country’s
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas34
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 34 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Community-based conservation for the protection of the snow leopard
total area. These are managed by government agencies exclusively for
wildlife/biodiversity protection. This chapter begins with a brief look
at India’s historical approach to protected area management, referred
to as the Exclusionary Model, as well as an introduction to two differ-
ent conservation approaches, conservation through sustainable use (or
CSU) and community-based conservation. Next, it presents a study of
a conservation initiative that has applied CSU and community-based
conservation in a fragile trans-Himalayan ecosystem. Spearheaded by
the NGO Snow Leopard Conservancy-India Trust (SLC-IT), the initia-
tive’s participatory approach has been highly successful and the authors
attempt to unpack the elements that have been crucial to its success.
The chapter goes on to critically assess India’s Protected Area legislation
and reviews the problems and consequences of some of these laws for
conservation within PAs, and more significantly, for the people who live
in them. The chapter concludes with a discussion on India’s current
conservation framework and the key priorities for change if the country
is to achieve positive conservation outcomes while upholding the values
of social justice, equity and human rights for its people.
Th
e exclusionary model:
India’s historical approach to
biodiversity conservation and
protected area management
As in many other parts of the world, communities across India had customary rights to use natural resources on their traditional commu- nity-held lands. From the time of British colonisation, however, natural resource governance became centralised and customary rights were extinguished and turned into ‘concessions’ that could be revoked when required (Wani & Kothari 2007, p. 10). This change in approach towards customary rights played a crucial role in forming India’s conser- vation laws.
35Community-based conservation for the protection of the snow leopard
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 35 14/11/12 9:14 AM

From its inception, Indian conservation law has been based on an
exclusionary model that has separated people from wildlife. Broadly,
it involved declaring protected areas with core zones that are wholly
or partially free of human habitation and resource use, surrounded by
buffer zones where some resource use and/or habitation is permitted, but
regulated. The principle was that ecosystems and wildlife would flour-
ish if left free of human interference, and implementing this approach
became legally possible due to the extinguishment of customary rights.
While there is no doubt that the use of this model has contributed
immensely to protecting India’s biodiversity, in the four decades that
have passed since the first crucial piece of legislation was enacted (Wild
Life (Protection) Act 1972), local communities have suffered displace-
ment and marginalisation on an enormous scale (Wani & Kothari 2007,
p. 11). Ironically, in many cases ecosystems have not wholly benefited
either, as the displacement of people has caused widespread infringe-
ment on park lands and triggered clashes between communities and
park authorities, thus putting tremendous pressure on the wildlife.
A
study in CSU and community-
based conservation as under-
taken by the Snow Leopard
Conservanc y-India Trust
Snow leopards (Panthera uncia) are only found in the high mountain ranges of Central and South Asia (McCarthy & Chapron 2003). Notori- ously elusive, they have earned the name ‘grey ghosts’, and are known as shan in local Ladakhi. All across the snow leopard’s range, humans
threaten their survival. The current population has been estimated at between 4080–6590, of which India is home to between 200–600 (see McCarthy & Chapron 2003, Table II). Numbers are thought to have declined by about 20 per cent in the last 16 years (IUCN 2011 et al. 2008) and the IUCN Red List categorises the snow leopard as Endangered.
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas36
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 36 14/11/12 9:14 AM

McCarthy and Chapron (2003) have assessed the primary direct
threats to snow leopards by region. In Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan,
the Tibetan plateau and parts of southern China, the main factors directly
threatening snow leopards are loss of natural habitat due to human
population growth; depletion of their natural prey due to increasing
competition with livestock; and retaliatory killings by local commu-
nities in retribution for livestock depredation (McCarthy & Chapron
2003). There is also a demand for live animals for zoos and circuses,
primarily in China (IUCN 2011 et al. 2008).
Conflicts with pastoralism underlie the major threats. The snow
leopard’s main natural (or wild) prey species are the bharal or blue
sheep (Pseudois nayaur) and the ibex (Capra sibirica). According to
Mishra (1997), livestock vastly outnumber wild prey species in many
of India’s protected areas (including those protecting snow leopards in
the Indian trans-Himalaya), and over time they outcompete wild prey,
causing a decline in the latter’s numbers due to starvation. These declines
cause snow leopards to prey on livestock (McCarthy & Chapron 2003;
Jackson et al. in press). This is deeply damaging to local herders who
rely primarily on agro-pastoralism for their livelihoods, and who retali-
ate by killing the snow leopards. Fox et al. (1991) assert that retributive
killing is the greatest current threat to snow leopards in India.
Snow leopard conservation in Hemis
National Park and environs
Rinchen Wangchuk established the Snow Leopard Conservancy-India
Trust (SLC-IT) in 2000 under the aegis of Dr Rodney Jackson, founding
director of Snow Leopard Conservancy-USA. Jackson is known for his
pioneering study radio-tracking snow leopards in the Nepalese Himala-
yas between 1982 and 1985 (Jackson 1996). See Plate 4.
The SLC-IT project is based in Hemis National Park and its environs
in the Ladakh Autonomous Region of India’s northernmost state, Jammu
& Kashmir (J&K). Ladakh is a high-altitude desert covering 87
000 km
2

37Community-based conservation for the protection of the snow leopard
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 37 14/11/12 9:14 AM

(roughly the area of Austria). What makes the region particularly impor-
tant for snow leopards is that it is the stronghold of the species in India
(as conclusively shown by a survey across the three Himalayan states of
J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh) (Fox et al. 1991, p. 283).
Established in 1981, Hemis is India’s largest national park, encom-
passing 3350 km
2
. It is prime snow leopard habitat and has four species
of wild sheep and goats that give it international biodiversity impor-
tance (Jackson & Wangchuk 2004, p. 97). About 1600 people live in 16
villages across three valleys, grow barley and vegetables and own more
than 4000 head of livestock, of which 81 per cent are sheep and goats
(the latter reared for their prized pashmina wool) and 11 per cent are
yaks, cattle and crossbreeds. The Markha Valley circuit through Hemis is
the most popular trekking route, attracting about 5000 visitors annually
(Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 97).
With permission from the Department of Wildlife Protection J&K,
SLC-IT began its program in Hemis in 2000. Their involvement was
prompted by a survey undertaken in the 1990s which showed that
people of the Markha Valley and surrounding hamlets had lost 12 per
cent of their livestock to predators over a 14-month period (late 1997
– early 1999) (Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 97). The average loss per
household was six animals (US$297); the total loss was 492 animals
(US$19
700). This was a significant hardship for these pastoralists.
About 75 per cent of the losses were sheep and goats, and 55 per cent

of the depredation came from snow leopards (with 31 per cent from wolves and 14 per cent from smaller predators; Bhatnagar et al. 1999). Significantly, 62 per cent of losses occurred in pastures, the other 38 per cent inside corrals. Although total losses were greater in pastures, the average loss per attack in corrals was high (up to 50 animals killed in one attack versus one or two animals per attack in pastures) (SLC-IT 2007). The shock of losing so many animals in one night (including precious calves and lambs) fuelled retaliatory killings of the big cats, and it was clear there was a critical need for intervention in this area (Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 98).
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas38
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 38 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Data regarding retributive killings is limited. However, anecdotal
evidence from a study of six villages in Zanskar by Spearing (2002, p.
184) showed that at least 16 snow leopards had been killed over the
previous seven years.
Interventions and outcomes
The Snow Leopard Conservancy employed a participatory process known
as Appreciative Participatory Planning and Action (APPA), developed
by the Mountain Institute-Nepal (Jackson & Wangchuk 2004, p. 307).
APPA seeks to build on a community’s strengths and use low-cost, locally
appropriate solutions (Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 99). It is practised
through an iterative process that seeks to (1) discover the communi-
ty’s strengths and resources, (2) envision short- and long-term futures
if resources were mobilised and the community acted collectively, (3)
design a basic action plan for guiding development and conservation in
ways that limit long-term dependency on outside financial sources and
(4) motivate participants to initiate community-improvement actions
immediately (Jackson & Wangchuk 2001, p. 140).
Reducing
depredation losses by predator-proofing
livestock pens
The major focus of the conservancy’s intervention was to curtail multiple killings of livestock by snow leopards in corrals. Their team began by encouraging locals to participate in planning and solutions, drawing on traditional knowledge regarding livestock movements, predator behav- iour and corral building.
The primary causes of depredation were found to be poorly
constructed corrals, placement of livestock in prime predator habitats and lax daytime guarding practices (Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 100).
One simple but effective solution was found – to predator-proof
night-time corrals using low-cost methods and minimal external support (Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 101). SLC-IT agreed to give technical
39Community-based
conservation for the protection of the snow leopard
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 39 14/11/12 9:14 AM

and financial aid – on the condition that no snow leopards or wolves
would be killed and any instances of poaching would be reported to the
authorities (Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 102).
A superior pen was designed to prevent snow leopards from enter-
ing, with a sturdy door and a roof made of wire meshing supported by
wooden poles. Villagers provided local materials such as stone and mud
for the walls, and free labour, while SLC-IT provided the door, poles
and wire meshing (see Plate 5). Leopard-proof pens for safeguarding
livestock have been used successfully elsewhere in Asia.
Outcomes of predator-proofing livestock corrals
The program has been highly successful in reducing predation from corrals. Depredation surveys in all snow leopard hotspots have been carried out since 2000. In any area that the Snow Leopard Conservancy undertakes corral improvement or income-generation activities, village stewards are asked to keep records of livestock predation. In Hemis, records show that total livestock losses were reduced from 12.4 per cent in 1999 to 9.8 per cent in 2004–05. Livestock losses from within enclosures were particularly effectively reduced, from 38.2 per cent in 1999 to 0.4 per cent in 2004–05. In villages where livestock pens have been improved, no revenge killings have been recorded (Wangchuk & Jackson 2004, p. 102).
SLC-IT has proofed 22 community enclosures and 21 individual pens
across 19 villages. It is estimated that each predator-proofed community corral saves two or three snow leopards from being trapped or poisoned by angry herders. The team is now constructing pens in Zanskar’s Sheila Phu and Zangla villages (SLC-IT 2011, September).
Income
generation through wildlife-based ecotourism:
financial incentives for communities to conserve snow
leopards
The Snow Leopard Conservancy has helped communities develop supplementary incomes from small-scale tourism projects that provide direct incentives to preserve wildlife while simultaneously raising living
Wildlife, communities and protected areas40
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 40 14/11/12 9:14 AM

standards. According to conservationist Shafqat Hussain, the need for
this approach is simple: ‘you cannot expect people who are struggling
to survive to subsidise a species for purely environmental reasons’
(National Geographic 2009).
In 2001, with financial support from UNESCO and technical exper-
tise from the Mountain Institute, SLC-IT invited village participation
to develop eco-friendly alternative livelihoods that required minimal
investment. Tourism was seen as a viable option, given the 5000-odd
visitors who pass through Hemis each summer. However, these tourists
had until then provided little or no benefit to local people (SLC-IT 2007).
One of the outcomes of this initiative was the Ladakh Himalayan
Homestays program. This program is based on a combination of snow
leopard treks and ‘homestays’ in traditional dwellings along trekking
routes. Local women (‘house mothers’) offer a room, full board and
an insight into their culture. Income goes directly to them and helps
compensate losses incurred from livestock depredation, making
communities less dependent on government compensation to offset the
costs of living with snow leopards. Importantly, 10 per cent of all profits
go into a Village Conservation Fund that supports conservation activi-
ties (see Plates 6 and 7).
Homestay households further increased their income by offering
additional services such as renting packhorses, setting up community-
owned solar showers and working as nature guides (SLC-IT has trained 42
youth who also assist in wildlife population monitoring) (SLC-IT 2007).
Outcomes of the Homestays program
Ninety-six households in 21 villages in Hemis and surrounding areas are currently involved in the Ladakh Himalayan Homestays program
(SLC-IT 2007).
The program has had several positive impacts. Foremost is the fact
that participating households have greatly benefited from the additional income. Significantly, it has empowered Ladakhi women, whose respected status as ‘house mothers’ places them at the heart of the
41Community-based
conservation for the protection of the snow leopard
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 41 14/11/12 9:14 AM

program. This economic empowerment has gradually changed herders’
perceptions of snow leopards. From threats, they are now seen as assets
that are worth more alive than dead, whose presence draws visitors and
provides economic opportunities throughout the region (SLC-IT 2007).
Nothing illustrates this change better than an insight from Rinchen
Wangchuk, SLC-IT’s program director: ‘when we started the program in
2000, villagers asked us why we had chosen to name our organisation
after such a despised animal (namely, the snow leopard). Less than a
decade later, a board sprang up in Hemis’ Rumbak village, proclaiming
Welcome to the Snow Leopard Capital of the World’.
Awareness-raising and community education
An important component of the Snow Leopard Conservancy’s efforts is increasing understanding of the importance of the snow leopard, its prey, and its fragile ecosystem, especially among rural communities and decision-makers (Jackson et al. 2002, p. 106). In 2005, SLC-IT collabo-
rated with the Indian NGO Kalpavriksh to start the Snow Leopard Conser-
vation Education Programme. The program targets 300 children across ten schools and focuses on Ladakh’s biodiversity, the threats it faces and conservation actions, with the hope that the children will become future stewards of their natural environment and its wildlife, including snow leopards. Kalpavriksh also developed a handbook for educators entitled Ri-Gyancha (‘Jewel of the Mountains’), which was launched in 2010 by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The team undertakes quantitative surveys in every participating
school and also collects written testimonials from participants. Results have shown continuous improvements in children’s knowledge of conser- vation issues (S Padmanabhan 2011, pers. comm. 4 July). The programs popularity led to the team being invited to conduct an environmental education training program for 39 government schoolteachers in collab- oration with the J&K education department, while two other schools have incorporated environmental education based on the Ri-Gyancha
handbook into their curriculums (SLC-IT, 2010 December, 2011 March).
Wildlife,
communities and protected areas42
UNSW_ConsMngmt_LayoutDi.indd 42 14/11/12 9:14 AM

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:

stand still in the air for the tenth of a second. A black disk with radial
white strips, when rapidly rotated, causes the white and black to
blend to an impure gray; while a spark of electricity, or a flash of
lightning, reduces the disk to apparent stillness, the white radial
strips being for a time plainly seen. Now, the singing flame is a
flashing flame, and M. Toepler has shown that by causing a striped
disk to rotate at the proper speed in the presence of such a flame it
is brought to apparent stillness, the white stripes being rendered
plainly visible. The experiment is both easy and interesting.
§ 5. Harmonic Sounds of Flame
A singing flame yields so freely to the pulses falling upon it that it is
almost wholly governed by the surrounding tube; almost, but not
altogether. The pitch of the note depends in some measure upon the
size of the flame. This is readily proved, by causing two flames to
emit the same note, and then slightly altering the size of either of
them. The unison is instantly disturbed by beats. By altering the size
of a flame we can also, as already illustrated, draw forth the
harmonic overtones of the tube which surrounds it. This experiment
is best performed with hydrogen, its combustion being much more
vigorous than that of ordinary gas. When a glass tube 7 feet long is
placed over a large hydrogen-flame, the fundamental note of the
tube is obtained, corresponding to a division of the column of air
within it by a single node at the centre. Placing a second tube, 3 feet
6 inches long, over the same flame, no musical sound whatever is
obtained; the large flame, in fact, is not able to accommodate itself
to the vibrating period of the shorter tube. But, on lessening the
flame, it soon bursts into vigorous song, its note being the octave of
that yielded by the longer tube. I now remove the shorter tube, and
once more cover the flame with the longer one. It no longer sounds
its fundamental notes, but the precise note of the shorter tube. To
accommodate itself to the vibrating period of the diminished flame,
the longer column of air divides itself like an open organ-pipe when
it yields its first harmonic. By varying the size of the flame, it is

possible, with the tube now before you, to obtain a series of notes
whose rates of vibration are in the ratio of the numbers 1:2:3:4:5;
that is to say, the fundamental tone and its first four harmonics.
These sounding flames, though probably never before raised to the
intensity in which they have been exhibited here to-day, are of old
standing. In 1777, the sounds of a hydrogen-flame were heard by
Dr. Higgins. In 1802, they were investigated to some extent by
Chladni, who also refers to an incorrect account of them given by De
Luc. Chladni showed that the tones are those of the open tube
which surrounds the flame, and he succeeded in obtaining the first
two harmonics. In 1802, G. De la Rive experimented on this subject.
Placing a little water in the bulb of a thermometer, and heating it, he
showed that musical tones of force and sweetness could be
produced by the periodic condensation of the vapor in the stem of
the thermometer. He accordingly referred the sounds of flames to
the alternate expansion and condensation of the aqueous vapor
produced by the combustion. We can readily imitate his
experiments. Holding, with its stem oblique, a thermometer-bulb
containing water in the flame of a spirit-lamp the sounds are heard
soon after the water begins to boil. In 1818, however, Faraday
showed that the tones are produced when the tube surrounding the
flame is placed in air of a temperature higher than 100° C.,
condensation being then impossible. He also showed that the tones
could be obtained from flames of carbonic oxide, where aqueous
vapor is entirely out of the question.
§ 6. Action of Extraneous Sounds on Flame: Experiments of
Schaffgotsch and Tyndall
After these experiments, the first novel acoustic observation on
flames was made in Berlin by the late Count Schaffgotsch, who
showed that when an ordinary gas-flame was surmounted by a short
tube, a strong falsetto voice pitched to the note of the tube, or to its
higher octave, caused the flame to quiver. In some cases when the

note of the tube was high, the flame could even be extinguished by
the voice.
In the spring of 1857, this experiment came to my notice. No
directions were given in the short account of the observation
published in “Poggendorff’s Annalen”; but, in endeavoring to
ascertain the conditions of success, a number of singular effects
forced themselves upon my attention. Meanwhile, Count
Schaffgotsch also followed up the subject. To a great extent we
travelled over the same ground, neither of us knowing how the other
was engaged; but, so far as the experiments then executed are
common to us both, to Count Schaffgotsch belongs the priority.
Let me here repeat his first observation. Within this tube, 11 inches
long, burns a small gas-flame, bright and silent. The note of the
tube has been ascertained, and now, standing at some distance
from the flame, I sound that note; the flame quivers. To obtain the
extinction of the flame it is necessary to employ a burner with a very
narrow aperture, from which the gas issues under considerable
pressure. On gently sounding the note of the tube surrounding such
a flame, it quivers; but on throwing more power into the voice the
flame is extinguished.
The cause of the quivering of the flame will be best revealed by an
experiment with the siren. As the note of the siren approaches that
of the flame you hear beats, and at the same time you observe a
dancing of the flame synchronous with the beats. The jumps
succeed each other more slowly as unison is approached. They
cease when the unison is perfect, and they begin again as soon as
the siren is urged beyond unison, becoming more rapid as the
discordance is increased. The cause of the quiver observed by M.
Schaffgotsch was revealed to me. The flame jumped because the
note of the tube surrounding it was nearly, but not quite, in unison
with the voice of the experimenter.
That the jumping of the flame proceeds in exact accordance with the
beats is well shown by a tuning-fork, which yields the same note as
the flame. Loading such a fork with a bit of wax, so as to throw it

slightly out of unison, and bringing it, when agitated, near the tube
in which the flame is singing, the beats and the leaps of the flame
occur at the same intervals. When the fork is placed over a resonant
jar, all of you can hear the beats, and see at the same time the
dancing of the flame. By changing the load upon the tuning-fork, or
by slightly altering the size of the flame, the rate at which the beats
succeed each other may be altered; but in all cases the jumps
address the eye at the moments when the beats address the ear.
While executing these experiments I noticed that, on raising my
voice to the proper pitch, a flame which had been burning silently in
its tube began to sing. The same observation had, without my
knowledge, been made a short time previously by Count
Schaffgotsch. A tube, 12 inches long, is placed over this flame,
which occupies a position about an inch and a half from the lower
end of the tube. When the proper note is sounded the flame
trembles, but it does not sing. When the tube is lowered until the
flame is three inches from its end, the song is spontaneous. Between
these two positions there is a third, at which, if the flame be placed,
it will burn silently; but if it be excited by the voice it will sing, and
continue to sing.

Fig. 118.
Even when the back is turned toward the flame the sonorous pulses
run round the body, reach the tube, and call forth the song. A pitch-
pipe, or any other instrument which yields a note of the proper
height, produces the same effect. Mounting a series of tubes,
capable of emitting all the notes of the gamut, over suitable flames,
with an instrument sufficiently powerful, and from a distance of 20
or 30 yards, a musician, by running over the scale, might call forth
all the notes in succession, the whole series of flames finally joining
in the song.
When a silent flame, capable of being excited in the manner here
described, is looked at in a moving mirror, it produces there a
continuous band of light. Nothing can be more beautiful than the
sudden breaking up of this band into a string of richly-luminous
pearls at the instant the voice is pitched to the proper note.
One singing flame may be caused to effect the musical ignition of
another. Before you are two small flames, f′ and f, Fig. 118 (p. 273),
the tube over f′ being 10-1/2 inches, that over f 12 inches long. The
shorter tube is clasped by a paper slider, s. The flame f′ is now

singing, but the flame f, in the longer tube, is silent. I raise the
paper slider which surrounds f′, so as to lengthen the tube, and on
approaching the pitch of the tube surrounding f, that flame sings.
The experiment may be varied by making f the singing flame and f′
the silent one at starting. Raising the telescopic slider, a point is soon
attained where the flame f′ commences its song. In this way one
flame may excite another through considerable distances. It is also
possible to silence the singing flame by the proper management of
the voice.
SENSITIVE NAKED FLAMES
§ 7. Discovery of Sensitive Flames by Le Conte
We have hitherto dealt with flames surrounded by resonant tubes;
and none of these flames, if naked, would respond in any way to
such noise or music as could be here applied. Still it is possible to
make naked flames thus sympathetic. This action of musical sounds
upon naked flames was first observed by Prof. Le Conte at a musical
party in the United States. His observation is thus described: “Soon
after the music commenced, I observed that the flame exhibited
pulsations which were exactly synchronous with the audible beats.
This phenomenon was very striking to every one in the room, and
especially so when the strong notes of the violoncello came in. It
was exceedingly interesting to observe how perfectly even the trills
of this instrument were reflected on the sheet of flame. A deaf man
might have seen the harmony. As the evening advanced, and the
diminished consumption of gas in the city increased the pressure,
the phenomenon became more conspicuous. The jumping of the
flame gradually increased, became somewhat irregular, and, finally,
it began to flare continuously, emitting the characteristic sound,
indicating the escape of a greater amount of gas than could be
properly consumed. I then ascertained, by experiment, that the
phenomenon did not take place unless the discharge of gas was so
regulated that the flame approximated to the condition of flaring. I

likewise determined, by experiment, that the effects were not
produced by jarring or shaking the floor and walls of the room by
means of repeated concussions. Hence it is obvious that the
pulsations of the flame were not owing to indirect vibrations
propagated through the medium of the walls of the room to the
burning-apparatus, but must have been produced by the direct
influence of aërial sonorous pulses on the burning jet.”
52
The significant remark, that the jumping of the flame was not
observed until it was near flaring, suggests the means of repeating
the experiments of Dr. Le Conte; while a more intimate knowledge of
the conditions of success enables us to vary and exalt them in a
striking degree. Before you burns a bright candle-flame, but no
sound that can be produced here has any effect upon it. Though
sonorous waves of great power be sent through the air, the candle-
flame remains insensible.
Fig. 119. Fig. 120.
But by proper precautions even a candle-flame may be rendered
sensitive. Urging from a small blow-pipe a narrow stream of air
through such a flame, an incipient flutter is produced. The flame
then jumps visibly to the sound of a whistle, or to a chirrup. The
experiment may be so arranged that, when the whistle sounds, the
flame shall be either restored almost to its pristine brightness, or
that the small amount of light it still possesses shall disappear.
The blow-pipe flame of our laboratory is totally unaffected by the
sound of the whistle as long as no air is urged through it. By

properly tempering the force of the blast, a flame is obtained of the
shape shown in Fig. 119. On sounding the whistle the erect portion
of the flame drops down, and while the sound continues the flame
maintains the form shown in Fig. 120.
§ 8. Experiments on Fish-tail and Bat’s-wing Flames
We now pass on to a thin sheet of flame, issuing from a common
fish-tail burner, Fig. 121. You might sing to this flame, varying the
pitch of your voice; no shiver of the flame would be visible. You
might employ pitch-pipes, tuning-forks, bells, and trumpets, with a
like absence of all effect. A barely perceptible motion of the interior
of the flame may be noticed when a shrill whistle is blown close to it.
But by turning the cock more fully on, the flame is brought to the
verge of flaring. And now, when the whistle is blown, the flame
thrusts suddenly out seven quivering tongues, Fig. 122. The moment
the sound ceases, the tongues disappear, and the flame becomes
quiescent.
Fig. 121. Fig. 122.
Passing from a fish-tail to a bat’s-wing burner, we obtain a broad,
steady flame, Fig. 123. It is quite insensible to the loudest sound
which would be tolerable here. The flame is fed from a small gas-

holder.
53
Increasing gradually the pressure, a slight flutter of the
edge of the flame at length answers to the sound of the whistle.
Turning on the gas until the flame is on the point of roaring, and
blowing the whistle, it roars, and suddenly assumes the form shown
in Fig. 124.
When a distant anvil is struck with a hammer, the flame instantly
responds by thrusting forth its tongues.
Fig. 123. Fig. 124.
An essential condition to entire success in these experiments
disclosed itself in the following manner: I was operating on two fish-
tail flames, one of which jumped to a whistle while the other did not.
The gas of the non-sensitive flame was turned off, additional
pressure being thereby thrown upon the other flame. It flared, and
its cock was turned so as to lower the flame; but it now proved non-
sensitive, however close it might be brought to the point of flaring.
The narrow orifice of the half-turned cock interfered with the action
of the sound. When the gas was turned fully on, the flame being
lowered by opening the cock of the other burner, it became again
sensitive. Up to this time a great number of burners had been tried,
but with many of them the action was nil. Acting, however, upon the
hint conveyed by this observation, the cocks which fed the flames
were more widely opened, and our most refractory burners thus
rendered sensitive.

In this way the observation of Dr. Le Conte is easily and strikingly
illustrated; in our subsequent, and far more delicate, experiments
the precaution just referred to is still more essential.
§ 9. Experiments on Flames from Circular Apertures
A long flame may be shortened and a short one lengthened,
according to circumstances, by sonorous vibrations. The flame
shown in Fig. 125 is long, straight, and smoky; that in Fig. 126 is
short, forked, and brilliant. On sounding the whistle, the long flame
becomes short, forked, and brilliant, as in Fig. 127; while the forked
flame becomes long and smoky, as in Fig. 128. As regards,
therefore, their response to the sound of the whistle, one of these
flames is the complement of the other.
In Fig. 129 is represented another smoky flame which, when the
whistle sounds, breaks up into the form shown in Fig. 130.
When a brilliant sensitive flame illuminates an otherwise dark room,
in which a suitable bell is caused to strike, a series of periodic
quenchings of the light by the sound occurs. Every stroke of the bell
is accompanied by a momentary darkening of the room.
The foregoing experiments illustrate the lengthening and shortening
of flames by sonorous vibrations. They may also produce rotation.
From some of our homemade burners issue flat flames, about ten
inches high, and three inches across at their widest part. When the
whistle sounds, the plane of each flame turns ninety degrees round,
and continues in its new position as long as the sound continues.

Fig. 125.Fig. 126.Fig. 127.Fig. 128.Fig. 129.Fig. 130.
A flame of admirable steadiness and brilliancy now burns before you.
It issues from a single circular orifice in a common iron nipple. This
burner, which requires great pressure to make its flame flare, has
been specially chosen for the purpose of enabling you to observe,
with distinctness, the gradual change from apathy to sensitiveness.
The flame, now 4 inches high, is quite indifferent to sound. On
increasing the pressure its height becomes 6 inches; but it is still
indifferent. When its length is 12 inches, a barely perceptible quiver
responds to the whistle. When 16 or 17 inches high, it jumps briskly
the moment an anvil is tapped or the whistle sounded. When the
flame is 20 inches long you observe a quivering at intervals, which
announces that it is near roaring. A slight increase of pressure
causes it to roar, and shorten at the same time to 8 inches.
Diminishing the pressure a little, the flame is again 20 inches long,
but it is on the point of roaring and shortening. Like the singing
flames which were started by the voice, it stands on the brink of a
precipice. The proper note pushes it over. It shortens when the

whistle sounds, exactly as it did when the pressure is in excess. The
action reminds one of the story of the Swiss muleteers, who are said
to tie up their bells at certain places lest the tinkle should bring an
avalanche down. The snow must be very delicately poised before
this could occur. It probably never did occur, but our flame illustrates
the principle. We bring it to the verge of falling, and the sonorous
pulses precipitate what was already imminent. This is the simple
philosophy of all these sensitive flames.
When the flame flares, the gas in the orifice of the burner is in a
state of vibration; conversely, when the gas in the orifice is thrown
into vibration, the flame, if sufficiently near the flaring point, will
flare. Thus the sonorous vibrations, by acting on the gas in the
passage of the burner, become equivalent to an augmentation of
pressure in the holder. In fact, we have here revealed to us the
physical cause of flaring through excess of pressure, which, common
as it is, has never been hitherto explained. The gas encounters
friction in the orifice of the burner, which, when the force of transfer
is sufficiently great, throws the issuing stream into the state of
vibration that produces flaring. It is because the flaring is thus
caused that an infinitesimal amount of energy in the form of
vibrations of the proper period can produce an effect equivalent to a
considerable increase of pressure.
§ 10. Seat of Sensitiveness
Fig. 131.

That the external vibrations act upon the gas in the orifice of the
burner, and not first upon the burner itself, the tube leading to it, or
the flame above it, is thus proved. A glass funnel R, Fig. 131, is
attached to a tube 3 feet long and half an inch in diameter. A
sensitive flame b is placed at the open end T of the tube, while a
small high-pitched reed is placed in the funnel at R. When the sound
is converged upon the root of the flame, as in Fig. 131, the action is
violent; when converged on a point half an inch above the burner, as
in Fig. 132, or at half an inch below the burner, as in Fig. 133, there
is no action. The glass tube may be dispensed with and the funnel
alone employed, if care be taken to screen off all sound, save that
which passes through the shank of the funnel.
54
§ 11. Influence of Pitch
Fig. 132.

Fig. 133.
All sounds are not equally effective on the flame; waves of special
periods are required to produce the maximum effect. The effectual
periods are those which synchronize with the waves produced by the
friction of the gas itself against the sides of its orifice. With some of
these flames a low deep whistle is more effective than a shrill one.
With others the exciting tremors must be very rapid, and the sound
consequently shrill. Not one of these four tuning-forks, which vibrate
256 times, 320 times, 384 times, and 512 times respectively in a

second, has any effect upon the flame from our iron nipple. But,
besides their fundamental tones, these forks, as you know, can be
caused to yield a series of overtones of very high pitch. The
vibrations of this series are 1,600, 2,000, 2,400, and 3,200 per
second, respectively. The flame jumps in response to each of these
sounds; the response to that of the highest pitch being the most
prompt and energetic of all.
To the tap of a hammer upon a board the flame responds; but to the
tap of the same hammer upon an anvil the response is much more
brisk and animated. The reason is, that the clang of the anvil is rich
in the higher tones to which the flame is most sensitive. The
powerful tone obtained when our inverted bell is reinforced by its
resonant tube has no power over this flame. But when a halfpenny is
brought into contact with the vibrating surface the flame instantly
shortens, flutters, and roars. I send an assistant with a smaller bell,
worked by clockwork, to the most distant part of the gallery. He
there detaches the hammer; the strokes follow each other in
rhythmic succession, and at every stroke the flame falls from a
height of 20 to a height of 8 inches, roaring as it falls.
The rapidity with which sound is propagated through air is well
illustrated by these experiments. There is no sensible interval
between the stroke of the bell and the ducking of the flame.
When the sound acting on the flame is of very short duration a
curious and instructive effect is observed. The sides of the flame
half-way down, and lower, are seen suddenly fringed by luminous
tongues, the central flame remaining apparently undisturbed in both
height and thickness. The flame in its normal state is shown in Fig.
134, and with its fringes in Fig. 135. The effect is due to the
retention of the impression upon the retina. The flame actually falls
as low as the fringes, but its recovery is so quick that to the eye it
does not appear to shorten at all.
55

Fig. 134. Fig.
135.
§ 12. The Vowel-flame
A flame of astonishing sensitiveness now burns before you. It issues
from the single orifice of a steatite burner, and reaches a height of
24 inches. The slightest tap on a distant anvil reduces its height to 7
inches. When a bunch of keys is shaken the flame is violently
agitated, and emits a loud roar. The dropping of a sixpence into a
hand already containing coin, at a distance of 20 yards, knocks the
flame down. It is not possible to walk across the floor without
agitating the flame. The creaking of boots sets it in violent
commotion. The crumpling, or tearing of paper, or the rustle of a silk
dress, does the same. It is startled by the patter of a rain-drop. I
hold a watch near the flame: nobody hears its ticks; but you all see
their effect upon the flame. At every tick it falls and roars. The
winding up of the watch also produces tumult. The twitter of a
distant sparrow shakes the flame; the note of a cricket would do the

same. A chirrup from a distance of 30 yards causes it to fall and roar.
I repeat a passage from Spenser:
“Her ivory forehead full of bounty brave,
Like a broad table did itself dispread;
For love his lofty triumphs to engrave,
And write the battles of his great godhead.
All truth and goodness might therein be read,
For there their dwelling was, and when she spake,
Sweet words, like dropping honey she did shed;
And through the pearls and rubies softly brake
A silver sound, which heavenly music seemed to make.”
The flame selects from the sounds those to which it can
respond. It notices some by the slightest nod, to others it
bows more distinctly, to some its obeisance is very profound,
while to many sounds it turns an entirely deaf ear.
In Fig. 136, this wonderful flame is represented. On
chirruping to it, or on shaking a bunch of keys within a few
yards of it, it falls to the size shown in Fig. 137, the whole
length, a b, of the flame being suddenly abolished. The light
at the same time is practically destroyed, a pale and almost
non-luminous residue of it alone remaining. These figures
are taken from photographs of the flame.
To distinguish it from the others I have called this
the “vowel-flame,” because the different vowel-
sounds affect it differently. A loud and sonorous U
does not move the flame; on changing the sound to
O, the flame quivers; when E is sounded, the flame
is strongly affected. I utter the words boot, boat,
and beat, in succession. To the first there is no
response; to the second, the flame starts; by the
third, is thrown into greater commotion; the sound
Ah! is still more powerful. Did we not know the
constitution of vowel-sounds this deportment would
be an insoluble enigma. As it is, however, the flame
illustrates the theory of vowel-sounds. It is most

Fig. 1
36.
Fig. 137.
Fig. 138.
sensitive to sounds of high pitch; hence we should
infer that the sound Ah! contains higher notes than the
sound E; that E contains higher notes than O; and O higher notes
than U. I need not say that this agrees perfectly with the analysis of
Helmholtz.
This flame is peculiarly sensitive to the utterance of
the letter S. A hiss contains the elements that most
forcibly affect the flame. The gas issues from its
burner with a hiss, and an external sound of this
character is therefore exceedingly effective. From a
metal box containing compressed air I allow a puff
to escape; the flame instantly ducks down not by
any transfer of air from the box to the flame, for
the distance between both utterly excludes this idea
—it is the sound that affects the flame. From the
most distant part of the gallery my assistant
permits the compressed air to issue in puffs from
the box; at every puff the flame suddenly falls. The
hiss of the issuing air at the one orifice precipitates
the tumult of the flame at the other.
When a musical-box is placed on the table, and permitted to play,
the flame behaves like a sentient and motor creature—bowing
slightly to some tones, and courtesying deeply to others.
§ 13. Mr. Philip Harry’s Sensitive Flame
Mr. Philip Barry has discovered a new and very effective form of
sensitive flame, which he thus describes in a letter to myself: “It is
the most sensitive of all the flames that I am acquainted with,
though from its smaller size it is not so striking as your vowel-flame.
It possesses the advantage that the ordinary pressure in the gas-
mains is quite sufficient to produce it. The method of producing it
consists in igniting the gas (ordinary coal-gas) not at the burner but
some inches above it, by interposing between the burner and the
flame a piece of wire-gauze.”

I give a sketch of the arrangement adopted in Fig. 138. The space
between the burner and gauze was 2 inches. The gauze was about 7
inches square, resting on the ring of a retort-stand. It had 32
meshes to the lineal inch. The burner was Sugg’s steatite pinhole
burner, the same as used for the vowel-flame.
The flame is a slender cone about four inches high, the upper
portion giving a bright-yellow light, the base being a non-luminous
blue flame. At the least noise this flame roars, sinking down to the
surface of the gauze, becoming at the same time invisible. It is very
active in its responses, and, being rather a noisy flame, its sympathy
is apparent to the ear as well as the eye.
“To the vowel-sounds it does not appear to answer so discriminately
as the vowel-flame. It is extremely sensitive to A, very slightly to E,
more so to I, entirely non-sensitive to O, but slightly sensitive to U.
“It dances in the most perfect manner to a small musical snuff-box,
and is highly sensitive to most of the sonorous vibrations which
affect the vowel-flames.”
§ 14. Sensitive Smoke-jets
It is not to the flame, as such, that we owe the extraordinary
phenomena which have been just described. Effects substantially the
same are obtained when a jet of unignited gas, of carbonic acid,
hydrogen, or even air itself, issues from an orifice under proper
pressure. None of these gases, however, can be seen in its passage
through air, and, therefore, we must associate with them some
substance which, while sharing their motions, will reveal them to the
eye. The method employed from time to time in this place of
rendering aërial vortices visible is well known to many of you. By
tapping a membrane which closes the mouth of a large funnel filled
with smoke, we obtain beautiful smoke-rings, which reveal the
motion of the air. By associating smoke with our gas-jets, in the
present instance, we can also trace their course, and, when this is
done, the unignited gas proves as sensitive as the flames. The

Fig. 139.
smoke-jets jump, shorten, split into forks, or lengthen into columns,
when the proper notes are sounded.
Underneath this gas-holder are placed two small basins, the one
containing hydrochloric acid, and the other ammonia. Fumes of sal-
ammoniac are thus copiously formed, and mingle with the gas
contained in the holder. We may, as already stated, operate with
coal-gas, carbonic acid, air, or hydrogen; each of them yields good
effects. From our excellent steatite burner now issues a thin column
of smoke. On sounding the whistle, which was so effective with the
flames, it is found ineffective. When, moreover, the highest notes of
a series of Pandean pipes are sounded, they are also ineffective. Nor
will the lowest notes answer. But when a certain pipe, which stands
about the middle of the series, is sounded, the smoke-column falls,
forming a short stem with a thick, bushy head. It is also pressed
down, as if by a vertical wind, by a knock upon the table. At every
tap it drops. A stroke on an anvil, on the contrary, produces little or
no effect. In fact, the notes here effective are of a much lower pitch
than those which were most efficient in the case of the flames.
The amount of shrinkage exhibited by
some of these smoke-columns, in
proportion to their length, is far
greater than that of the flames. A tap
on the table causes a smoke-jet
eighteen inches high to shorten to a
bushy bouquet, with a stem not more
than an inch in height. The smoke-
column, moreover, responds to the
voice. A cough knocks it down; and it
dances to the tune of a musical-box.
Some notes cause the mere top of the
smoke-column to gather itself up into
a bunch; at other notes the bunch is
formed midway down; while notes of
more suitable pitch cause the column to contract itself to a cumulus
not much more than an inch above the end of the burner. Various

forms of the dancing smoke-jet are shown in Fig. 139. As the music
continues, the action of the smoke-column consists of a series of
rapid leaps from one of these forms to another.
In a perfectly still atmosphere these slender smoke-columns rise
sometimes to a height of nearly two feet, apparently vanishing into
air at the summit. When this is the case, our most sensitive flames
fall far behind them in delicacy; and though less striking than the
flames, the smoke-wreaths are often more graceful. Not only special
words, but every word, and even every syllable, of the foregoing
stanza from Spenser, tumbles a really sensitive smoke-jet into
confusion. To produce such effects, a perfectly tranquil atmosphere
is necessary. Flame-experiments, in fact, are possible in an
atmosphere where smoke-jets are utterly unmanageable.
56
§ 15. Constitution of Liquid Veins: Sensitive Water-jets
We have thus far confined our attention to jets of ignited and
unignited coal-gas—of carbonic acid, hydrogen, and air. We will now
turn to jets of water. And here a series of experiments, remarkable
for their beauty, has long existed, which claim relationship to those
just described. These are the experiments of Felix Savart on liquid
veins. If the bottom of a vessel containing water be pierced by a
circular orifice, the descending liquid vein will exhibit two parts
unmistakably distinct. The part of the vein nearest the orifice is
steady and limpid, presenting the appearance of a solid glass rod. It
decreases in diameter as it descends, reaches a point of maximum
contraction, from which point downward it appears turbid and
unsteady. The course of the vein, moreover, is marked by periodic
swellings and contractions. Savart has represented these
appearances as in Fig. 140. The part a n nearest the orifice is limpid
and steady, while all the part below n is in a state of quivering
motion. This lower part of the vein appears continuous to the eye;
but the finger can be sometimes passed through it without being
wetted. This, of course, could not be the case if the vein were really
continuous. The upper portion of the vein, moreover, intercepts

Fig. 140. Fig.
141. Fig. 142.
vision; the lower portion, even when the
liquid is mercury, does not. In fact, the vein
resolves itself, at n, into liquid spherules, its
apparent continuity being due to the
retention of the impressions made by the
falling drops upon the retina. If, while
looking at the disturbed portion of the vein,
the head be suddenly lowered, the
descending column will be resolved for a
moment into separate drops. Perhaps the
simplest way of reducing the vein to its
constituent spherules is to illuminate the
vein, in a dark room, by a succession of
electric flashes. Every flash reveals the
drops, as if they were perfectly motionless
in the air.
Could the appearance of the vein
illuminated by a single flash be rendered
permanent, it would be that represented in
Fig. 141. And here we find revealed the
cause of those swellings and contractions
which the disturbed portion of the vein
exhibits. The drops, as they descend, are
continually changing their forms. When first
detached from the end of the limpid portion
of the vein, the drop is a spheroid with its
longest axis vertical. But a liquid cannot
retain this shape, if abandoned to the
forces of its own molecules. The spheroid
seeks to become a sphere—the longer
diameter, therefore, shortens; but, like a
pendulum which seeks to return to its
position of rest, the contraction of the vertical diameter goes too far,
and the drop becomes a flattened spheroid. Now, the contractions of
the jet are formed at those places where the longest axis of the drop

is vertical, while the swellings appear where the longest axis is
horizontal. It will be noticed that between every two of the larger
drops is a third one of much smaller dimensions. According to
Savart, their appearance is invariable.
I wish to make the constitution of a liquid vein evident to you by a
simple but beautiful experiment. The condensing lens has been
removed from our electric lamp, the light being permitted to pass
through a vertical slit directly from the carbon-points. The slice of
light thus obtained is so divergent that it illuminates, from top to
bottom, a liquid vein several feet long, and placed at some distance
from the lamp. Immediately in front of the camera is a large disk of
zinc with six radial slits, about ten inches long and an inch wide. By
the rotation of the disk the light is caused to fall in flashes upon the
jet; and, when the suitable speed of rotation has been attained, the
vein is resolved into its constituent spherules. Receiving the shadow
of the vein upon a white screen, its constitution is rendered clearly
visible to all here present.
This breaking-up of a liquid vein into drops has been a subject of
frequent experiment and much discussion. Savart traced the
pulsations to the orifice, but he did not think that they were
produced by friction. They are powerfully influenced by sonorous
vibrations. In the midst of a large city it is hardly possible to obtain
the requisite tranquillity for the full development of the continuous,
portion of the vein; still, Savart was so far able to withdraw his vein
from the influence of such irregular vibrations that its limpid portion
became elongated to the extent shown in Fig. 142. It will be
understood that Fig. 141 represents a vein exposed to the irregular
vibrations of the city of Paris, while Fig. 142 represents one
produced under precisely the same conditions, but withdrawn from
those vibrations.
The drops into which the vein finally resolves itself are incipient even
in its limpid portion, announcing themselves there as annular
protuberances, which become more and more pronounced, until
finally they separate. Their birthplace is near the orifice itself, and

under even moderate pressure they succeed each other with
sufficient rapidity to produce a feeble musical note. By permitting
the drops to fall upon a membrane, the pitch of this note may be
fixed; and now we come to the point which connects the
phenomena of liquid veins with those of sensitive flames and smoke-
jets. If a note in unison with that of the vein be sounded near it, the
limpid portion instantly shortens; the pitch may vary to some extent,
and still cause a shortening; but the unisonant note is the most
effectual. Savart’s experiments on vertically-descending veins have
been recently repeated in our laboratory with striking effect. From a
distance of thirty yards the limpid portion of the vein has been
shortened by the sound of an organ-pipe of the proper pitch and of
moderate intensity.
I have also recently gone carefully, not merely by reading, but by
experiment, over Plateau’s account of the resolution of a liquid vein
into drops. In his researches on the figures of equilibrium of bodies
withdrawn from the action of gravity, he finds that a liquid cylinder is
stable as long as its length does not exceed three times its diameter;
or, more accurately, as long as the ratio between them does not
exceed that of the diameter of a circle to its circumference, or
3.1416. If this be a little exceeded the cylinder begins to narrow at
some point or other of its length; nips itself together, breaks, and
forms immediately two spheres. If the ratio of the length of the
cylinder to its diameter greatly exceed 3.1416, then, instead of
breaking up into two spheres, it breaks up into several.
A liquid cylinder may be obtained by introducing olive-oil into a
mixture of alcohol and water, of the same density as the oil. The
latter forms a sphere. Two disks of smaller diameter than the sphere
are brought into contact with it, and then drawn apart; the oil clings
to the disks, and the sphere is transformed into a cylinder. If the
quantity of oil be insufficient to produce the maximum length of
cylinder, more may be added by a pipette. In making this experiment
it will be noticed that, when the proper length is exceeded, the
nipped portion of the cylinder elongates, and exists for a moment as
a very thin liquid cylinder uniting the two incipient spheres; and that,

when rupture occurs, the thin cylinder, which has also exceeded its
proper length, breaks so as to form a small spherule between the
two larger ones. This is a point of considerable significance in
relation to our present question.
Now, Plateau contends that the play of the molecular forces in a
liquid cylinder is not suspended by its motion of translation. The first
portion of a vein of water quitting an orifice is a cylinder, to which
the laws which he has established regarding motionless cylinders
apply. The moment the descending vein exceeds the proper length it
begins to pinch itself so as to form drops; but urged forward as it is
by the pressure above it, and by its own gravity, in the time required
for the rounding of the drop it reaches a certain distance from the
orifice. At this distance, the pressure remaining constant, and the
vein being withdrawn from external disturbance, rupture invariably
occurs. And the rupture is accompanied by the phenomenon which
has just been called significant. Between every two succeeding large
drops a small spherule is formed, as shown in Fig. 141.
Permitting a vein of oil to fall from an orifice, not through the air, but
through a mixture of alcohol and water of the proper density, the
continuous portion of the vein, its resolution into drops, and the
formation of the small spherule between each liberated drop and the
end of the liquid cylinder which it has just quitted, may be watched
with the utmost deliberation. The effect of this and other
experiments upon the mind will be to produce the conviction that
the very beautiful explanation offered by Plateau is also the true
one. The various laws established experimentally by Savart all follow
immediately from Plateau’s theory.
In a small paper published more than twenty years ago I drew
attention to the fact that when a descending vein intersects a liquid
surface above the point of rupture, if the pressure be not too great,
it enters the liquid silently; but when the surface intersects the vein
below the point of rupture a rattle is immediately heard, and bubbles
are copiously produced. In the former case, not only is there no
violent dashing aside of the liquid, but round the base of the vein,

and in opposition to its motion, the liquid collects in a heap, by its
surface tension or capillary attraction. This experiment can be
combined with two other observations of Savart’s, in a beautiful and
instructive manner. In addition to the shortening of the continuous
portion by sound, Savart found that, when he permitted his
membrane to intersect the vein at one of its protuberances, the
sound was louder than when the intersection occurred at the
contracted portion.
I permitted a vein to descend, under scarcely any pressure, from a
tube three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and to enter silently a
basin of water placed nearly 20 inches below the orifice. On
sounding vigorously a Ut
2
tuning-fork the pellucid jet was instantly
broken, and as many as three of its swellings were seen above the
surface. The rattle of air-bubbles was instantly heard, and the basin
was seen to be filled with them. The sound was allowed slowly to
die out; the continuous portion of the vein lengthened, and a series
of alternations in the production of the bubbles was observed. When
the swellings of the vein cut the surface of the water, the bubbles
were copious and loud; when the contracted portions crossed the
surface, the bubbles were scanty and scarcely audible.
Removing the basin, placing an iron tray in its place, and exciting the
fork, the vein, which at first struck silently upon the tray,
commenced a rattle which rose and sank with the dying out of the
sound, according as the swellings or contractions of the jet impinged
upon the surface. This is a simple and beautiful experiment.

From toé: Figë. 143, 144, 145.
Savart also caused his vein to issue horizontally and at various
inclinations to the horizon, and found that, in certain cases,
sonorous vibrations were competent to cause a jet to divide into two
or three branches. In these experiments the liquid was permitted to
issue through an orifice in a thin plate. Instead of this, however, we
will resort to our favorite steatite burner; for with water also it
asserts the same mastery over its fellows that it exhibited with
flames and smoke-jets. It will, moreover, reveal to us some entirely
novel results. By means of an India-rubber tube the burner is
connected with the water-pipes of the Institution, and, by pointing it
obliquely upward, we obtain a fine parabolic jet (Fig. 143). At a
certain distance from the orifice, the vein resolves itself into
beautiful spherules, whose motions are not rapid enough to make
the vein appear continuous. At the vertex of the parabola the spray
of pearls is more than an inch in width, and, further on, the drops
are still more widely scattered. On sweeping a fiddle-bow across a

tuning-fork which executes 512 vibrations in a second, the scattered
drops, as if drawn together by their mutual attractions, instantly
close up, and form an apparently continuous liquid arch several feet
in height and span (shown in Fig. 144). As long as the proper note is
maintained the vein looks like a frozen band, so motionless does it
appear. On stopping the fork the arch is shaken asunder, and we
have the same play of liquid pearls as before. Every sweep of the
bow, however, causes the drops to fall into a common line of march.
A pitch-pipe, or an organ-pipe yielding the note of this tuning-fork,
also powerfully controls the vein. The voice does the same. On
pitching it to a note of moderate intensity, it causes the wandering
drops to gather themselves together. At a distance of twenty yards,
the voice is, to all appearance, as powerful in curbing the vein, and
causing its drops to close up, as it is when close to the issuing jet.
The effect of “beats” upon the vein is also beautiful and instructive.
They may be produced either by organ-pipes or by tuning-forks.
When two forks vibrate, the one 512 times and the other 508 times
in a second, you will learn in our next lecture that they produce four
beats in a second. When the forks are sounded the beats are heard,
and the liquid vein is seen to gather up its pearls, and scatter them
in synchronism with the beats. The sensitiveness of this vein is
astounding; it rivals that of the ear itself. Placing the two tuning-
forks on a distant table, and permitting the beats to die gradually
out, the vein continues its rhythm almost as long as hearing is
possible. A more sensitive vein might actually prove superior to the
ear—a very surprising result, considering the marvellous delicacy of
this organ.
57
By introducing a Leyden-jar into the circuit of a powerful induction-
coil, a series of dense and dazzling flashes of light, each of
momentary duration, is obtained. Every such flash in a darkened
room renders the drops distinct, each drop being transformed into a
little star of intense brilliancy. If the vein be then acted on by a
sound of the proper pitch, it instantly gathers its drops together into
a necklace of inimitable beauty.

In these experiments the whole vein gathers itself into a single
arched band when the proper note is sounded; but, by varying the
conditions, it may be caused to divide into two or more such bands,
as shown in Fig. 145. Drawings, however, are ineffectual here; for
the wonder of these experiments depends mainly on the sudden
transition of the vein from one state to the other. In the motion
dwells the surprise, and this no drawing can render.
58
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER VI
When a gas-flame is placed in a tube, the air in passing over the
flame is thrown into vibration, musical sounds being the
consequence.
Making allowance for the high temperature of the column of air
associated with the flame, the pitch of the note is that of an open
organ-pipe of the length of the tube surrounding the flame.
The vibrations of the flame, while the sound continues, consist of a
series of periodic extinctions, total or partial, between every two of
which the flame partially recovers its brightness.
The periodicity of the phenomenon may be demonstrated by means
of a concave mirror which forms an image of the vibrating flame
upon a screen. When the image is sharply defined, the rotation of
the mirror reduces the single image to a series of separate images of
the flame. The dark spaces between the images correspond to the
extinctions of the flame, while the images themselves correspond to
its periods of recovery.
Besides the fundamental note of the associated tube, the flame can
also be caused to excite the higher overtones of the tube. The
successive divisions of the column of air are those of an open organ-
pipe when its harmonic tones are sounded.
On sounding a note nearly in unison with a tube containing a silent
flame, the flame jumps; and if the position of the flame in the tube
be rightly chosen, the extraneous sound will cause the flame to sing.

Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.
More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge
connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and
personal growth every day!
ebookbell.com

Conservation In A Crowded World Case Studies From The Asiapacific 1st Edition John Merson Rosie Cooney Paul Brown

About This Presentation

Slide Content

Tags

Categories

Download

Quick Actions

Statistics

Related Slideshows

Conservation In A Crowded World Case Studies From The Asiapacific 1st Edition John Merson Rosie Cooney Paul Brown

About This Presentation

Slide Content

Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3

Slide 5

Slide 6

Slide 7

Slide 8

Slide 9

Slide 10

Slide 11

Slide 12

Slide 13

Slide 14

Slide 15

Slide 16

Slide 17

Slide 18

Slide 19

Slide 20

Slide 21

Slide 22

Slide 23

Slide 24

Slide 25

Slide 26

Slide 27

Slide 28

Slide 29

Slide 30

Slide 31

Slide 32

Slide 33

Slide 34

Slide 35

Slide 36

Slide 37

Slide 38

Slide 39

Slide 40

Slide 41

Slide 42

Slide 43

Slide 44

Slide 45

Slide 46

Slide 47

Slide 48

Slide 49

Slide 50

Slide 51

Slide 52

Slide 53

Slide 54

Slide 55

Slide 56

Slide 57

Slide 58

Slide 59

Slide 60

Slide 61

Slide 62

Slide 63

Slide 64

Slide 65

Slide 66

Slide 67

Slide 68

Slide 69

Slide 70

Slide 71

Slide 72

Slide 73

Slide 74

Slide 75

Slide 76

Slide 77

Slide 78