Saving the Malabar Hornbill
Introduction:
As man continues to extend his developmental practices, nature bears the brunt of it silently. Every year thousands of organisms are wiped from the face of earth permanently. The numbers on the almost extinct list goes on increasing too. To blame man alone for it would be the answer to all the problems, but to try to understand how his activities are harming them seems like a more viable option. The Western Ghats of India is teeming with both flora and fauna. But due to the ever expanding development, it is under alert for environmental degradation.
Content:
The Malabar Grey Hornbill (MGH) is usually found in the moist-deciduous evergreen forests of the Western Ghats of India. Unlike the Indian Grey …show more content…
Now, the Indian Grey Hornbill, which once inhabited most of the Indian peninsula, has now been wiped out from large parts of its original habitat. For instance, in central India, it has disappeared. There have been several reports which talk about hornbills and how they are threatened in different parts of India. Most often however, the news that we come across is about the Malabar Pied Hornbill and the Great Pied Hornbill, the larger of the birds in south India, and seldom about the smaller and lesser known Indian Grey Hornbill and Malabar Grey Hornbill. To understand the extinction of these birds, one will have to study about the farming practices in that area. The tribal communities in that area use the method of clearing forests and then farming. Due to their large numbers, large tracts of land are cleared away at once and the recovery time taken by the forest is much longer than anticipated. It takes few seconds to chop down a tree but several years to grow another one in its place. The farmers mainly grow coffee in that area. Coffee is one such crop that needs canopy to grow. But the irony here is that the very trees that would give shade are being cut down. The deforestation
Introduction:
As man continues to extend his developmental practices, nature bears the brunt of it silently. Every year thousands of organisms are wiped from the face of earth permanently. The numbers on the almost extinct list goes on increasing too. To blame man alone for it would be the answer to all the problems, but to try to understand how his activities are harming them seems like a more viable option. The Western Ghats of India is teeming with both flora and fauna. But due to the ever expanding development, it is under alert for environmental degradation.
Content:
The Malabar Grey Hornbill (MGH) is usually found in the moist-deciduous evergreen forests of the Western Ghats of India. Unlike the Indian Grey …show more content…
Now, the Indian Grey Hornbill, which once inhabited most of the Indian peninsula, has now been wiped out from large parts of its original habitat. For instance, in central India, it has disappeared. There have been several reports which talk about hornbills and how they are threatened in different parts of India. Most often however, the news that we come across is about the Malabar Pied Hornbill and the Great Pied Hornbill, the larger of the birds in south India, and seldom about the smaller and lesser known Indian Grey Hornbill and Malabar Grey Hornbill. To understand the extinction of these birds, one will have to study about the farming practices in that area. The tribal communities in that area use the method of clearing forests and then farming. Due to their large numbers, large tracts of land are cleared away at once and the recovery time taken by the forest is much longer than anticipated. It takes few seconds to chop down a tree but several years to grow another one in its place. The farmers mainly grow coffee in that area. Coffee is one such crop that needs canopy to grow. But the irony here is that the very trees that would give shade are being cut down. The deforestation