People have to be placed at the centre if conservation has to make sense universally. What makes things even worse, is that these so-called protected zones allow commercial activities to go almost unchecked- Ravleen Kaur The earth is cracked and the horizon bare.The deathly silence is broken by the occasional whirring of crude-oil pumps.Women, going about their daily life in bright mirror-work lehangas, add a dash of colour to an otherwise arid background. This tough terrain has dominated 50-year-old Shantabhai Maganbhai Bamania's life since he was 10.