Sanctuary |Opinion
By Subhashini Krishnan
The Magic of Grass
VIKRAM POTDAR
It was close to six in the evening as the
western horizon was lit up by the blazing
sun. A bright moon rose on the eastern
horizon bringing cool winds and mist with
it. Standing there, experiencing two of the
most common yet brilliant phenomena,
I looked around at the huge swathes of
grasslands around me. The sunny side
showed a palette of yellows, browns,
oranges, and reds, while the moonlit side
was a monotonous texture of dark green.
Around me were porcupine cavities,
scuttling mongooses, a herd of ruminating
nilgai, and a symphony of insects and
roosting birds. These enigmatic operations
of the meadow held me rooted to my
spot and left me wondering whether
this picture-perfect image of one of the
last remaining grasslands of the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve would be able to
survive in the decades ahead.ENDANGERED, MISUNDERSTOOD,
UNDERVALUED
The antiquity of grasslands is little
understood by people, including decision-
makers who undervalue these miraculous
ecosystems that need protection, not
‘improvement’. They did not become
fallow lands lying in wait of development.
Nor are they wastelands, dump sites or
lands just waiting for someone to turn
into fi elds and farms.
One of our planet’s most vital biomes,
grasslands (dominated by plants from
the Poaceae family) have been around
since the Cretaceous period and play“Following in the footsteps of the National Forest Policy of 1988, the updated draft policy of 2018
re-emphasises the need to enhance tree and forest cover. But the crux of a functioning biosphere
is its diversity. Natural non-forested open lands are ecosystems in their own right and converting
them into ‘forested’ lands can only be termed as the work of an uninformed administration,” writes
the author, who asks for scientifi c management plans for our vanishing grasslands.a signifi cant but greatly devalued role
in maintaining life on Earth. Nothing
explains this better than the way
grasslands are named. Grasslands are
referred to as ‘Banjar Bhoomi’ in Hindi,
‘Porambokku Nilam’ in Tamil, ‘Khil
Bhoomi’ in Bengali, ‘Padik Jamin’ in
Marathi - all denoting spaces that are
‘wastelands’ or ‘infertile lands.’ It is no
surprise that they are the fi rst victims
of agricultural expansion and the fi rst
choice for waste dump-sites. Even
worse, planners often see grasslands as
degraded ecosystems, ‘ripe’ for planting
trees such as eucalyptus, teak, Prosopis
julifl ora, tecoma, and poplars. In the
process, we end up destroying one of the
planet’s most unique habitats that sustain
a splendiferous ecosystem..
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