75th Wildlife Week: Himachal Celebrates Wildlife, Farmers Battle Bears, Boars and Monkeys
SHIMLA, SEPTEMBER 1:
Himachal Pradesh Forest Department is gearing up to celebrate its 75th Wildlife Week from October 2 to 8.
But for thousands of orchardists the real wildlife story is unfolding far away from seminar halls—in their orchards and grain fields, where bears, wild boars, monkeys and birds are increasingly turning into a serious threat to crops and fruit trees.
The Forest Department’s Wildlife Wing has planned bird watching, nature walks, seminars, rallies, quizzes, photography and painting competitions, documentary screenings and other activities. These are good things to create a sense of care and awareness among students and people for wildlife.
Farmers, however, say Wildlife Week will mean little unless the department confronts the growing human-wildlife conflict that is eating into their livelihoods.
These conflicts are not only alienating farmers from wildlife and forest but also proving disastrous for both animals and farmers at large
Bears are at the centre of the growing alarm. Although bears are generally nocturnal, farmers in several apple-growing belts say they are now being spotted in broad daylight, sometimes moving with their cubs through orchards.
Farmers have been filming these encounters on mobile phones and uploading the footage on social media in an attempt to wake up the Wildlife Department.
When farmers have to become the Wildlife Department’s eyes, ears and cameras, the field-monitoring system clearly needs an overhaul.
The conflict extends beyond bears. Wild boars, monkeys and birds are causing widespread damage to apple and other fruit crops, farmers say. Animals are not only consuming fruit but breaking branches, damaging young plants and destroying productive trees, leaving orchardists facing losses extending well beyond a single season.
The birds prey on flowering and fruit, and grains causing losses to farmers. Some take it for a ride saying the animals also need to survive. But others point out to an alarming situation and many farmers say they have left farming as it has become unlikable due to wild life menace.
The affected belt cuts across large parts of Shimla, Mandi and Kullu districts, with farmers reporting serious problems in Shilgrahan, Shantha, Chopal, Sarain, upper Kotkhai, Jubbal, Rohru, Kumarsain, Kotgarh, Thanedhar, Narkanda, Baghi, Khadrala, Sungri, Rampur and Nankhari, besides other vulnerable areas.
Farmers claim that more than 20 per cent of fruit production in badly affected areas can be lost every year, while hundreds of productive trees are damaged or destroyed. The economic loss, they say, is substantial—but adequate compensation is still missing.
A destroyed mature apple tree is not simply a tree lost today; it represents years of investment and several future harvests. Yet farmers allege that government compensation does not reflect the actual loss caused by wildlife.
The crisis also raises a fundamental question: where is Himachal’s current scientific map of wildlife populations and conflict zones?
Farmers are demanding more frequent wildlife census, camera-trap monitoring, habitat assessment and mapping of animal movement. They want the Forest Department to know exactly where conflict is increasing and which species are responsible before the situation becomes unmanageable.
Wildlife population management must also be placed on the table, they say. This does not mean indiscriminate culling. Any intervention must be based on scientific population assessment, ecological carrying capacity, expert advice and the provisions of wildlife law.
But where a species is scientifically found to be locally overabundant and causing sustained damage, farmers want the government to examine all legally permissible population-management options.
The official Wildlife Week theme—“Conservation of Wildlife Habitats for Healthy Lives and Livelihoods”—puts the contradiction into sharp focus.
What about the livelihoods? Farmers living alongside forests say conservation cannot become a one-way contract in which the state protects wildlife while individual farmers absorb the economic cost of wildlife damage.
The problem, they argue, goes deeper than wildlife itself. Himachal’s Forest Department has become excessively top-heavy and bureaucratic, while field-level forest management needs more officers, more resources and more authority.
Forest officers sitting at Talland headquarters and district headquarters cannot effectively manage forests that they rarely visit, farmers and field observers argue.
The department needs to move away from a culture of files, meetings and headquarters-based administration and return to the basic principle of forestry: the forest must be seen on the ground.
The criticism is not against forest officers working from headquarters when administrative duties require it. The issue is the imbalance between bureaucracy and field presence.
Conservators and DFOs need to spend substantially more time walking forests, inspecting wildlife corridors, visiting conflict hotspots, meeting communities and examining damaged orchards.
A forest cannot be understood from a file. A bear corridor cannot be mapped from a conference room. And an orchard destroyed by wildlife cannot be assessed from a district headquarters.
The department needs serious de-bureaucratisation and decentralisation, with greater responsibility pushed down to field officers and measurable accountability for results.
Every conflict-prone belt should have regular wildlife monitoring, seasonal movement mapping, rapid-response arrangements and a documented record of crop and tree damage. Farmers should know whom to contact when wildlife enters an orchard—and officers should know how quickly they are expected to respond.
Wildlife Week should also become a public accountability week, not merely an annual ritual. The department could publish a yearly report card showing wildlife population trends, conflict hotspots, crop and tree losses, compensation paid, preventive measures taken and whether those measures actually worked.
The Wildlife Wing has announced an impressive calendar for October 2 to 8, including bird watching, botanical excursions, zoo visits, a chir pheasant release, mini-marathons, cycling rallies, treks, expert interactions, quizzes, seminars and webinars.
The celebrations will culminate in a state-level function in Shimla on October 8, featuring exhibitions, documentary screenings, cultural programmes, publication releases and award distribution.
Painting, photography and video documentary competitions will also be held, with the best video documentary carrying a ₹20,000 prize.
Such activities can certainly create awareness. But no painting competition will protect an apple orchard from a bear, and no seminar will replace a Forest Officer actually visiting a conflict zone.
The real test of the 75th Wildlife Week will therefore come after October 8. Will the Forest Department return to its offices—or will its officers return to the forests?
Himachal needs a Forest Department that is less top-heavy, less bureaucratic, more field-oriented and more accountable. Senior officers must spend more time in forests and less time managing forests through paperwork.
The jungle needs boots, not bureaucracy. And the farmer needs more than an annual Wildlife Week. He needs protection, scientific wildlife management and compensation when conservation imposes a direct economic cost on his livelihood.
Unless Himachal fundamentally strengthens field forestry, regularly maps wildlife populations and movement, addresses human-wildlife conflict scientifically and makes senior officers accountable for what happens on the ground, Wildlife Week risks becoming another annual ritual while the real battle between wildlife and livelihoods continues unchecked in the orchards.
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