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BOOK REVIEW 
  

Conservation Dilemmas in Contemporary India 
 

Ayesha Pattnaik  
 
Ghazala Shahabuddin and K. Sivaramakrishnan, eds. 2019. Nature 
Conservation in the New Economy. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. ISBN: 978-
93-5287-613-6, pp. 291, INR 995.00 (HB).  

Nature Conversation in the New 
Economy presents a thoughtful 
analysis of how a steady 
reorientation in environmental 
laws following the liberalization 
of the Indian economy in the 
1990s has impacted conservation 
policies in India. The editors, 
Ghazala Shahabuddin and K. 
Sivaramakrishnan, emphasize that 
this shift towards neo-liberal legal 
thinking has mostly served 
commercial interests and excludes 
a range of local stakeholders. The 
case studies in the volume 
provide deep insights into how 
legal loopholes, implementation 
challenges, and the unintended 
consequences of even well-
intentioned efforts have worked 

                                                        
 Research Associate, Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), #3, 
Community Shopping Centre, Niti Bagh, New Delhi 110049; ayesha.pattnaik@gmail.com. 

Copyright © Pattnaik 2021. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 
4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v4i1.374   

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v4i1.374


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [146] 

to whittle down genuine conservation outcomes. Besides emphasizing 
multidisciplinary approaches, the collection of nine richly detailed essays 
addresses four main themes: the study of wildlife laws and policies; 
regulatory environments; institutions and social change; and the role of 
science in implementing conservation agendas. 

The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 (WPA) is often heralded as India’s key 
legislation that offers legal protection for wild animals. The opening chapter 
by Ambika Aiyadurai, however, raises several questions about the WPA’s 
efficacy—particularly its impact on local communities. Through a case 
study of the Mishmi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh, Aiyadurai points out how a 
simple reading of the WPA could end up casting the Mishmi as a potential 
threat to wildlife since they are dependent on hunting for their livelihood. 
The WPA, consequently, is a source of tension rather than a tool for 
conservation. As a way out, Aiyadurai proposes that the effectiveness of 
wildlife protection laws will depend on how sensitive conservation agendas 
are to the world-views of communities inhabiting the environments in 
question. 

State-controlled forest conservation is a recurring theme in several of the 
essays. M. Vikas challenges the purported success of forest management 
laws such as the National Forest Policy of 1998 by examining how the 
strong belief in separating humans from nature actually results in 
emphasizing the aesthetics of afforestation rather than taking the science 
that is required for achieving good conservation outcomes seriously. The 
essay highlights how the establishment of the Delhi Ridge as a protected 
area caused the usurping of the commons that were previously used by 
pastoral communities. While Vikas laments the exclusion of local 
communities and the marginalization of their knowledge of forest 
management, Rinki Sarkar’s detailed study of Kinnaur (Himachal Pradesh) 
raises doubts about the role of communities in shaping desired 
conservation practices. Sarkar’s research suggests that when given increased 
access to markets, communities often tend to stress the delicate ecosystem 
of Chilgoza pines (pinusgerardiana) and bird habitats. For Sarkar, a possible 
strategy to mitigate the situation is ―a citizen science kind of participatory 
framework‖(213) that could aim to blend indigenous and scientific 
knowledge for better policymaking. 

Rajkamal Goswami and T. Ganesh, in their essay on community forests in 
Meghalaya, further complicate the role of the Indian state in forest 
protection in the post-liberalization phase. By comparing factors like 
population density and the rise in plantation agriculture, the authors deftly 
illustrate how community forests experienced more intense degradation 
than reserved forests in the region between 1994 and 2014, as communities 



[147] Ayesha Pattnaik 

opened up forests for industrial use. To address this dilemma, Meghna 
Agarwala et al. flag the need to develop ecosystem services frameworks for 
measuring forest resilience in their essay. They believe such valuation 
exercises, which draw upon the differing perceptions about species value by 
stakeholders, could offer ways for local communities to evolve conservation 
priorities while meeting commercial interests. 

The politics of conservation is brought out by Ghazala Shahabuddin in her 
essay, which explores the various twists and turns that dogged the 
attempted reintroduction of the Asiatic cheetah in India. By discussing how 
the reintroduction could have had an adverse impact on the ecosystem and 
local communities, her essay underscores the dynamic and fragile nature of 
the ecosystem. While largely political calculations prevented the cheetah’s 
reintroduction, the essay sheds a searching light on how policymaking often 
prioritizes the needs of a few with little consideration for informed 
conservation. 

Neha Sinha’s essay focuses on the complex linkages between water 
resources and urban ecosystems. It points out that biologically diverse 
ecosystems have in fact emerged from human-created water bodies such as 
stormwater drains and swamps in cities across the states of Delhi, Tamil 
Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. While wetland ecologies provide several critical 
ecosystem services, in urban areas they continue to remain excluded from 
wetland rules and regulations and are often encroached upon. Like the 
earlier essay by Vikas, Sinha too asserts that conservation policies need to 
go beyond treating these urban ecologies as merely aesthetic contributions 
and instead should acknowledge them for the important services they 
provide as wetland ecosystems. 

Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon in their essay attempt to address one of 
central questions raised throughout the book: is meaningful conservation 
impossible? The authors provide a detailed survey of coastal management 
plans in Karnataka and Gujarat to illustrate how the Coastal Regulation 
Zone Notifications (CRZ) are systematically failing in India. While the CRZ 
notifications of 2011 emphasized the need for participatory conservation, 
Kohli and Menon argue that developmental agendas seem to win invariably 
at the cost of the environment.   

In the final essay, Archana Bali and Kartik Shanker weigh the effectiveness 
of certain kinds of conservation policies within coffee plantations located in 
the Western Ghats. The authors discuss changes in hunting practices and 
the felling of trees brought about by the WPA and Karnataka Preservation 
of Trees Act in particular. However, they point out that market fluctuations 
have had a much greater impact on tree cover and the hunting pursuits of 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [148] 

local populations than regulations. They contend that while the lack of 
infrastructure available for officials can explain why some of the policy 
implementation is weak, realizing meaningful conservation outcomes greatly 
depends on how different social groups relate to their ecological 
endowments. 

By thus exploring the various political and economic fault-lines that run 
through different conservation policies in India, this compelling collection 
of essays highlights the need to go beyond merely scrutinizing legislations. 
Rather, understanding how policymakers interact with practitioners, 
researchers, and various local stakeholders is key to designing meaningful 
and effective conservation on the ground. Nature Conversation in the New 
Economy is an important contribution to a field that continues to cry out for 
more multidisciplinary dialogue. 


