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SACRED GROVES FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
K. Ullas Karanth
India has now seriously grappled with contentious problems of conserving its wildlife for over a half century with a marked intensification of the effort in the second half of this period. This effort has been made against a backdrop of a massive population increase, rise in democratic aspirations and burgeoning consumer needs and greed, all of which fuelled a rapidly developing economy. Yet, against all odds, India has managed to hang on to, however precariously, several intact faunal assemblages of highly extinctionprone large vertebrates within the confines of its protected areas that cover only 4 per cent of its landmass.
Compared to the virtual elimination or large-scale range ...
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