The GIANT CONSERVATION CON!

Unfortunately, as things currently stand, genuinely rare & endangered PLANTS have been abandoned to their fate - this is not just in the Indian NW Himalaya, which is my area of greatest expertise (i.e. I know much more about the flora (incl. species utilised in Tibetan Medicine), environment and peoples of the NW Himalaya than anyone ever has - my knowledge and experience exceeds that of the combined resources of every Indian Institution connected with Himalayan flora and that of all Institutions in the West incl. Kew, Edinburgh Botanic Garden and the Natural History Museum in London - an extravagant claim you might think but if you realised just how little the botanical staff of these places actually know, not so surprising).

The IMPORTANT issue is that the actual rarities - and NOBODY including me, knows which species really are rare because INSUFFICIENT field-work by competent field-botanists has been undertaken in the Indian Himalaya since Independence in 1947! To be fair, the scale of the Himalaya and terrain, make it challenging to botanise for even the keenest field worker but I know of hardly any Indian botanist who have an appetite for plant exploration anywhere, let alone involving negotiating arduous, even dangerous conditions. When Indian botanists occasionally venture into the mountains, this is almost always in vehicles, from which they explore only a short-distance from, normally with assistants to do the actual gathering of specimens. Detailed field notes are rarely taken - at best the subsequent, mostly poor quality, scrappy, inadequate pressed specimens, are assigned a date, general location and collection number, which is woefully insufficient information. I know of hardly any Indian botanists who can actually reliably identify plants when "in the field". I know of hardly any Indian botanists who locate anything other than 'road-side weeds'. The do not search for specimens amongst large boulders or steep ground, let alone cliffs. And how often do the stay overnight or more than one overnight per trip. Treks are uncommon - without them, combined with so little searching, many species are considered rarities or are missed altogether. This contributes to false claims are to the supposedly rarity of such mountain plants as Meconopsis aculeata, Primula reptans and Saxifraga jacquemontiana - all of which grew abundantly, if you only know where to look and are physically capable of reaching such habitats not forgetting having the skills to scramble around safely in such terrain. The 'Red Data' books for plants published by Indian botanists are A JOKE - mere inventions. THIS CONSTITUTES NOT JUST INCOMPETENCE BUT FRAUD.

And such FRAUD is actively ENCOURAGED by such International organisations as IUCN (which should be prosecuted and disbanded) with the FARCICAL CAMP METHODOLOGY applied by Indian botanists and other Indian scientists who do not know the species they are making these FALSE CLAIMS about.

This is nothing short of a scandal. Why is the BBC's ENVIRONMENT OF THE HIMALAYA specialist NAVIN SINGH KHADKA not investigating? Well, apart from being completely INCOMPETENT himself, he is CORRUPT, his only objective being to MAKE EXCUSES for lazy and CORRUPT officials by BLAMING FOREIGNERS and/or GLOBAL WARMING for all of Nepal's woes. As to the BBC, it is COMPLICIT in this COVER-UP of what Mr Khadka would pronounce as TOTAL ILLEGALLY - it deeply concerns me that such TABLOID DUMBED-DOWN journalism is ENCOURAGED and PROTECTED by senior figures there....