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Siberia's wild white spirit1 March, 2010 |
HOMESiberia's wild white spirit March 01, 2010 Monday, 03:44 PM It was a foggy winter morning sometime in the early 1980s, at Keoladeo Ghana, the protected wetland south of New Delhi, outside the town of Bharatpur. The woodlands of the Ghana as we call it, teemed with deer and antelope, birds and mongooses and pythons and jackals and wild boar. The waters were alive with fish and turtles and frogs and water snakes and insects. And the birds for which it is famous? As many as 350 species have been recorded in mid winter, in just 29 square kilometers. The water, the sky, the woodland, are alive with them. It is not for nothing that the Ghana is both a listed wetland under the Ramsar Convention, and a World Heritage Site. The Ghana was part of my growing up. I long ago lost count of the days and nights I spent there, in the 1960s and 1970s and again in the 1980s. They unreeled like a film in my mind thanks to a single e-mail from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). That morning, the sun fog was slowly lifting. My breath had ceased creating small white clouds, and the first yellow-orange rays of the sun warmed my cold fingers. I had left the tourists behind and walked into the interior in search of solitude and pictures. In those days I carried two cameras, several lenses, a tripod — and binoculars. Kilometers of raised embankments crisscross the lakes, lined with scrub and low thorny trees. I turned a corner and saw the Siberian cranes — four tall, big white birds standing in the shallow water just five metres from me. Or I should say we saw each other. I dropped behind a bush, and sat without moving for about 2-3 minutes. Then I cautiously peered through the foliage and saw that the birds were still there and incredibly, had stopped walking away. I then moved very slowly partially into the open, and began taking pictures. Birders will understand how special the next two hours were, as the cranes were so relaxed that one of them even went to sleep, standing with one leg tucked up. Nobody else came along that path. The birds seemed to accept me. After a while I stopped taking photographs and just sat there watching them. I have never before or since, been so close — something like 20 metres — for so long, to a Siberian crane on the ground. The Siberian crane is whiter than any white bird you know. Every winter, this western flock would fly some 5,000 km to visit the Ghana from its breeding grounds in western Siberia, an immense journey with just a few stops, crossing over some of the highest mountains and harshest deserts on Earth. I became a small part of the fight to protect that western flock, but there were limits to what we could do, because conditions on the flyway in Iran and Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, were beyond our control. Still, many others laboured at saving them on the flyway, and in their breeding grounds. The Ghana was reasonably secure, though occasional droughts and changes in the ecosystem were a cause for concern. Yet the Siberian cranes dwindled before our eyes. I had — and may still have — a faded colour slide taken (I remember the date because it was written on the slide frame in my mother's hand) in 1973. It showed a single flight of well over 20 cranes at the Ghana. I was there when that picture was taken. In the 1980s their number dwindled to less than a dozen, then as few as five or six. Finally one year, no Siberian cranes arrived at all. They had slipped through our fingers. The white angel of the Ghana was gone. Indeed, in total today, there are only about 3,000-3,500 Siberian cranes left. Of the world's 15 crane species, seven were threatened with extinction by the 1970s. Cranes with their stately grace, their wild and lyrical courtship dance, their pair loyalty and their long migrations, have inspired folklore and art for centuries — in Japan, China, the Korean peninsula, Europe and north America. In Kutch, near the border with Pakistan in western India, one of the folk songs of the nomadic camel-herding Jat tribe tells of the long-legged winter visitors from far away — the Common and Demoiselle cranes which visit that region every winter. With US$10.3 million (S$14.4 million) in Global Environment Facility (GEF) financing, the Siberian Crane Wetland Project stressed public awareness and worked with governments and local communities to protect key wetlands across Eurasia — to date over seven million hectares, an area equivalent to that of Ireland. The project was an international effort by China, Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia and implemented by the Wisconsin-based International Crane Foundation (ICF) through UNEP. Monique Barbut, CEO of the GEF, said: "Some 60 per cent of wetlands worldwide — and up to 90 per cent in Europe — have been destroyed in the past 100 years, principally due to drainage for agriculture but also through pollution, dams, canals, groundwater pumping, urban development and peat extraction." UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: "The Siberian Cranes need the wetlands to rest and to feed. But communities and countries need wetlands too. Not only are they important suppliers and purifiers of drinking water and productive fisheries, but they play a significant role in flood defence and combating climate change. By some estimates wetlands may be storing between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of all land-based carbon." The story of the Siberian crane — enigmatic, aloof, exotic — could fill many books. The western flock still winters in Iran. Perhaps some day, thanks to projects like these across many countries, that show what quiet but dedicated international cooperation can achieve, they may return to the Ghana. There are many who dream of such a day. A good brief on the extraordinary Siberian crane's migratory route, and an audio recording of its famed "unison call" is available at The Siberian Crane Flyway Coordination website.
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