Vikram,
I agree with you that we need to learn and adopt best practices. At the moment, learning best practices is unsystematic. There is no process for it. So if someone has to travel to get a field experience in Africa or some other country, invariably you will find a person high up in the chain will visit rather than the person who has to implement it.

It would be good, if the Ministry of Environment and Forests can come out with a process for tapping best practices. That would help avoid controversies. There would be some mistakes on the way. Honest mistakes are ok, and we should learn to accept those. However, too often mistakes happen due to lack of planning, foresight and due to sheer negligence. I think those cannot be condoned.

It is highly unfortunate that there is absolutely no emphasis on securing our exisiting habitat and creating linkages between those. Unless we act today, it would be difficult to create corridors later as relocation is not an easy job. It is tough on the people and has to be done with lot of care. It is costly as well. We are too busy in stop gap arrangements like flying in a few animals to restock a forest. While that is necessary for the present, we should not lose the sight of the larger goal of reconnecting our protected areas.

Sabyasachi