“We live in a time where the environment space has become political. When we fight such issues, we’re perceived by the establishment or your own people as being anti-national. It’s difficult to be an environment journalist. The perils of following the green story are that you’re constantly pushing for prime-time space,” said Bahar Dutt, at the outset of her illustrated talk on her debut book, Green Wars – Dispatches from a Vanishing World at The Hindu Lit for Life.
“I wasn’t always a journalist. I spent many years working with traditional communities of snake charmers in Rajasthan and on the outskirts of Delhi. As the cliché goes, I went to change the people, but the people changed me,” said Dutt, describing her efforts at helping them find alternative livelihood options. Besides highlighting the negative impact of development and globalisation, her presentation dwelt upon the most important moments in her career as a conservation biologist and television journalist.
The Green Oscar-winning environmentalist’s work with primates in Africa involved the running of an animal ambulance, and constructing rope bridges across roads bisecting their forest habitat. Working at the renowned Jersey Zoo in the U.K. gave her an opportunity to observe a troop of monkeys from close quarters.
How did she switch from conservation biology to television journalism? “India’s forests were getting diverted for the construction of dams and highways. I felt that someone needed to tell the story of how we were losing some of our best wilderness areas in this mad race for development.”
Debunking the Environmental Kuznets Curve, a theory which suggests that developed countries could, through effecting structural changes, afford to adopt environment-friendly technologies, Dutt cited the growth story of China. Though hailed the world over as a model economy, not much has been said about the contamination of its rivers, high pollution levels or carbon footprint, she pointed out.
“The focus has to change from GDP to GEP,” she emphasised, which means incentivising farmers to switch to organic farming methods, and encouraging households to resort to renewable and energy-saving devices. From Africa to the Arctic and gibbons to gharials, Dutt walked the audience through the world’s most fascinating wilderness areas, convincing and instilling hope that it was still not too late to save the planet.
