17
Apr 2008 - By Joanna Benn - Lying in the
foothills of the Himalayas on the border
between Indian and Bhutan, Manas National
Park has long been considered a crown jewel
among India’s many spectacular wildlife
reserves. Known for its breathtaking scenery
and wildlife, the park is part of the largest
conservation area in the region, its habitat
linked with the forests of Bhutan in the
north and the Buxa Tiger Reserve in West
Bengal.
It is home to the tiger,
pygmy hog and golden langur as well as elephants,
wild buffalo and Indian bison. Once it was
common to see its native rhino.
But the glory of Manas
was damaged by a violent local agitation
that began in 1989 to carve out a separate
Bodo homeland within the Indian federation.
An armed struggle caused massive upheaval
and destruction of the Park’s infrastructure,
including destruction of anti-poaching camps,
roads and bridges and killing of forest
staff.
Declared a World Heritage
Site in December 1985, by 1992 Manas was
listed as a World Heritage Site “in danger”
as it became a battleground in a protracted
insurgent war. The last rhino in Manas disappeared
in 1996.
“I remember rhinos being
here from before. They were all lost in
the ethnic strife. It will be good to have
them back here again,” smiles the local
boatsman in the park.
As of April 2008, the
rhinos are back. As part of an ambitious
project called Indian Rhino Vision 2020
(IRV 2020), the government of Assam State
and conservation groups are repopulating
the park with rhinos and rebuilding the
park’s infrastructure to ensure they are
protected.
There is a strong economic
incentive for local communities, including
the local ethnic community of the Bodos,
to make sure the rhinos thrive.
“When tourists come,
they want to see animals – it will be helpful
to have the rhinos,” adds Dhan Chandra Doley,
a local forest guard.
Ex-militia turned gamekeepers
Manas is in a state of renewal. Antipoaching
camps funded by IRV 2020 are scattered throughout
the park – some are finished, others nearly
built. At each camp, forest personnel are
supplemented by volunteers from the Bodo
community. The volunteers, several of them
ex-poachers, have swapped their civilian
dress for khaki greens – a uniform for protectors
of the forests and wildlife.
“We work in the park
as volunteers, mainly in areas that have
been encroached upon already. If we find
someone poaching for the first time, we
tell them to stop it and that it’s illegal.
If we find them doing it again, we arrest
them,” says Munin Sargary, aged 18.
“I used to be involved
in hunting and fighting but I learnt that
Manas has to be saved for the long term.
If Manas can thrive, we can all be sustained,”
he adds.
Manas Jungle Camp is
a new Community Conservation Tourism project
running four small ecofriendly huts run
by the Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Society
(MMES). It is committed to the revival of
Manas, part of which is to get it off the
UNESCO World Heritage Red list.
The camp is owned entirely
by the community, which in large part consists
of ex-poachers and students. According to
Mahendra Basumatary, secretary of MMES,
most current tourists are Indian but they
want to attract more foreign visitors. “Home
stays” with local Bodo families – most of
whom are poor, landless labourers or marginal
farmers – is one new idea for the adventure
traveller.
“We don’t have raw materials
for industry but we can start ecotourism.
We used to have lots of poachers but now
they are ‘protection volunteers.’ That’s
a first for India,” Basumatary says.
Demand for a Homeland,
called Bodoland
More than 45,000 people live in the fringe
villages of Manas National Park, 90 percent
of them below the poverty line. The Bodos
who recently struggled for self-determination
within the framework of the Indian constitution
are now struggling to save their park and
its wildlife through innovative initiatives.
Most acknowledge there is a need to develop
more tourism, to develop home stays and
to continue training local people to become
guides, but agree it’s starting well.
Kampa Borgyari, an energetic
and quick-spoken man, is deputy chief of
Bodoland Territorial Council. Before the
first rhinos were moved into Manas, from
Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary 250 kilometers
away, he spoke of what the park and its
rhino means to his people.
“Manas is our identity,
but the last 20 years have been difficult.
The local people, the Bodo people were blamed
for the demise of the park. We have mobilized
ourselves to bring the glory of Manas back
…
“Now our youths work
day and night around the clock to protect
the park. It is unique – certainly in India
and maybe throughout the world. That should
be recognized.”
He pauses.
“It’ll be good to have
the rhinos home.”
Pobitora: A sanctuary
with no room for more rhinos
Rhinos dot Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary’s
landscape like cattle, an unexpected sight
when one considers that they are among the
most critically endangered species on the
planet.
The burgeoning numbers
of these endangered prehistoric-looking
animals crowded into Pobitora in Northeast
India is, according to conservationists,
a huge achievement and the result of strong
antipoaching legislation and active community
engagement.
“Not a single rhino
has been poached here in the last two years,”
says Surajit Dutta of the Guwahati Wildlife
Division. “We couldn’t have done it without
public support.”
Pobitora now boasts
the highest density of rhinos in the world,
with more than 80 rhinos in less than 18
square kilometers of rhino habitat. So four
rhinos - two males and two females – were
selected to be the first moved to their
new home in Manas. IRV 2020 carries high
hopes: to lessen pressure on Pobitora for
food and space, to reduce the straying of
dangerous rhinos into nearby villages and
once resettled, to help rejuvenate Manas
National Park.
Hope for the future
These rhinos are the vanguard of an ambitious
conservation project that seeks to build
a 3,000-strong rhino population distributed
over seven protected areas in Assam in Northeast
India. The aim is to create what’s known
as a viable population – the lowest possible
number of individuals of a species or population
that can survive in the wild without facing
extinction from natural disasters.
“Having too many rhinos
in one location carries a high risk, rather
like having all one’s eggs in the same basket.
The threat of a disease outbreak or a poaching
spate means it’s important to spread that
risk,” says Tariq Aziz from WWF, the conservation
organization helping to facilitate this
project.
Moving a two-tonne rhino
Moving a rhino is no easy task. It requires
months of planning and careful staging,
like a piece of theatre involving a cast
of thousands. To begin, one must carefully
choose the rhinos: those that are young
and healthy to be founder stock for the
new population. These chosen rhinos were
tracked for months and when the time came
were driven to a place where they could
be tranquilised. Fifteen trained domestic
elephants and their mahouts, or trainers,
from all around Assam were brought to the
area to “shepherd,” or corral, the rhinos
to one area. Once darted and tranquillised
with immobility drugs by vets, and radio
collared, the rhinos were rolled to a specially
built sledge which then was pulled into
the crates by a bulldozer. The rhinos lying
on the sledge are edged into the crates
and then large cranes will move the crates
into the trucks. Over the last few months,
roads from Potibora to Manas have been mended,
and bridges rebuilt in preparation for this
historic journey.
At their release into
Manas, the rhinos were greeted like film
stars by eager villagers, a sign that their
park and their way of life may be on the
rise.
“We will patrol the
park day and night. Even if we don’t have
food, we will take our water bottles,” pledges
local forest guard Dhan Chandra Doley. “We
are ready to look after the rhinos, whatever
it takes.”
Joanna Benn is the former Communications
Manager for WWF’s International Species
Programme
END NOTES:
The greater one-horned rhino is also known
as the Indian rhino. Its original range
extended from Pakistan all the way through
India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar.
But by the beginning of the 20th century,
only a few dozen rhinos remained across
its range. By 2002, conservation efforts
resulted in the swelling of greater one-horned
rhino populations to approximately 2,400
in the Eastern Himalayas foothills of India
and Nepal, and the grasslands of Assam and
north Bengal, northeast India. This success
aside, the greater one-horned rhino is still
listed as Endangered.
With 92% of the park
still under forest cover, Manas National
Park represents one of the best examples
of the Eastern Himalayan ecosystem.
IRV2020 is a joint project
of the Government of Assam, WWF, the International
Rhino Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service to increase the rhino population
in Assam from about 2000 to 3000 by the
year 2020. These rhinos will be distributed
over at least 7 protected areas to provide
long-term viability of an Assam meta-population
of rhinos. The conservation of rhinos in
Assam and India has been a great success
and through strict protection, the declining
population of 10-20 rhinos in 1905 has recovered
to over 1700 individuals. But now, more
than 93 percent of India's rhinos live in
just one national park, Kaziranga. The IRV
2020 project will further improve the security
of all rhinos in Assam by expanding the
distribution of rhinos to reduce risks like
disease, in-breeding depression and mass
mortality. The project also aims to reduce
the rhino population pressures in any single
habitat by ensuring a better distribution
of the rhino population over suitable ranges.
WWF Objectives for Manas
1. Conserve the biodiversity
of the park through the implementation of
a five-year conservation management plan.
2. Build and strengthen
the capacity of the park management and
local communities through training, education
and infrastructure development.
3. Provide rural development
opportunities for residents of the park
through the integration of conservation
and development.
Activities
The ideal way to explore Manas National
Park in Assam is in a 4-wheel (Jeep) drive
petrol vehicle. The park is closed in the
Monsoon season. The best months to visit
are November to April.
