Mission Bonyapran: Conservation Success Story in Gangmouthan
Parixit Kafley
What is Nature..? Nature is the origin of everything. Either it be a Beautiful bird or a huge rock or even a great thought in our so called human mind, everything is born out of nature. When we see a fresh rose we want to smell it, when we hear a wild bird singing we wish to see it, when we see a ripe juicy fruit we all wish to taste it at once, if we find someone misbehaving a street dog we want to stop him. Similarly when the sun is too hot we wish to rest under a shady tree, don’t we? So all these phenomena are examples of human desires and curiosity towards the nature. It means each and everything in nature has a bound with us, and affects us unknowingly. Yet some of them fascinate us much than the others.
To live in perfect harmony with the nature should be the goal of every conscious human on earth, instead of polluting and disrupting it. So, in order to be one with the nature, we must study our natural environment and resources. We the people of North-east are blessed with vast green valleys and hills, with hundreds of fresh water bodies flowing through, thick and dark Forests providing the sweetest fruits and the purest air, and obviously a very rich natural environment filled with a vast variety of plants and animals.
But alas! Now all our natural resources, ecosystems and wildlife species are facing various kinds of troubles created by mankind, it requires a rapid response to undo all the harm that we have already caused. It is time to join our hands together to stop those harmful activities done to the nature. Within our own boundaries of Sonitpur District of Assam we find many anti-natural activities carried out such as, encroachment of forest land, illegal logging, tree felling and hand-sawing of timber wood, poaching of wildlife, capturing and trading of wildlife, possession or selling of wildlife products and articles, pollution of air due to brick-factory smoke emissions, pollution of land and water due to excess use of tea-garden related poisons and pesticides, poisoning of water bodies for fishing, grazing of cattle inside a protected area, fishing inside a protected area and countless other examples.
We belong to an NGO named Natures Bonyapran, which has been conserving forest and wildlife since 1997 in the northern bank of the river Bramhaputra in Assam. We have made our mind to stop all those illegal activities through awareness of the general public, networking and cooperation of interested individuals, students and various related officials. Among our tasks is to get Behali Reserved Forest officially declared as a Wildlife Sanctuary, conducting various conservation activities such as wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, conducting awareness campaign among students and public, organizing seminars on environment related topics for students, teachers, lecturers and journalists, and conducting research work related to flora and fauna of Behali Reserved-forest and Kaziranga National-park (North-bank).
Our early works of nature conservation in Gangmouthan started around 2003-2004, through various school and outdoor activities. We were a group of amateur school-boys then, and were the first to dream of conservation. But our ideas were not open-heartedly accepted by the educated yet old-fashioned elderly people of Gangmouthan, thus it took nearly 5 to 6 years for the people to understand the meaning and importance of conservation. By the year 2006 we joined Natures Bonyapran as volunteering members. It was our great privilege to get involved with such a reputed organization in the field of conservation. With regular guidance under various research persons and experts from Natures Bonyapran, we further expanded our works to Kaziranga National-park north-bank (Gangmouthan).
Creating awareness among villagers through speech and demonstration were our primary steps in Gangmouthan. We seldom organized seminars or workshops, the only way that really worked out in creating awareness was by explaining the facts and data about a rescued wildlife in the field itself. Villagers would gather around and the flow continued for hours wherever there was a rescued animal kept. To tell them the very facts about the animal and protocols under which we couldn’t let them see the animal was a must job for us to do.
A new massage of conservation was carried out by our deeds, whether it was to rescue a Sambar weighing more than 150 kg, or a 5 feet long fierce Cobra which was trapped inside a kitchen. Our priority was always in securing all, the animal and the people around it and obviously ourselves as well as. From a baby-bird fallen from its nest to a turtle that was confiscated by some cruel fisherman, we always showed the same interest and spirit, being always least concerned about our own comfort in the field.
One of our toughest tasks was to stop the poachers of different tea-tribes from hunting the wild and endangered animals from our locality for consumption. Equipped with bows, arrows, clubs, catapults and spears they would wander in large groups in search of birds and animals to hunt. Though it was very risky to deal with such group of wild and ignorant hunters, we still enjoyed chasing them. The only way to stop them was to convince their chief (leader) and to let him know how the wildlife acts were against such criminal activities. Then he would beg pardon with us for their misdeeds and they all would return to their respective villages.
Many people from the locality of Balupara, Bahabari and Hatibandha were in a regular routine of hunting aquatic migratory birds in the winters, especially in the occasion of Magh-bihu. They mostly used nylon traps, fire-arms (guns), fish-hooks, poisoned-paddy, poisoned-fishes and many more techniques to hunt various species of ducks and gees. Poisoning of small water-bodies for fishing in the vicinity of Santipur was a great danger for the fresh-water eco-system of the Borgang River. In some occasions the Department of Police itself took legal actions against the criminals with great concern.
Our remarkable success was in stopping the grand-trend of community hunting of deer entering the villages during the floods in Kaziranga National-park. These hunts were in fact carried out by the literate and highly cultured people of Mazgaon, Hatibandha, Nakunia and Bahabari. It was an interesting fact that as soon as we reached, the aggressive crowd of people which was chasing an animal running for its life would suddenly change their minds and join us in rescuing and medicating the poor animal. The funniest thing was that some of those people would shamelessly comment, “In fact we were also trying to rescue the deer” but still holding a Khukri or a pole in their hands. From our prior field experience we have learnt that involvement of Journalists, Police and Forest officials; VDPs and other NGOs make our work much easier and successful in the field.
The commonest call we received in our cell-phones was, “Hello, there is snake in our house please do come to...” and in reply we would question them, “How large? What is the colour? Where is it? Be assured we shall reach there shortly.” As per our commitment we would reach the site within a short period of time and rescue our poor friend at once. Remarkably all of our snake-rescue operations were carried out without any professional equipment, except those made by ourselves at home. We are glade to declare that till this date there has not been a single poisonous snake-bite to any of our volunteers in any of our rescue works or trainings conducted. This directly speaks of our safety measures taken both for the snake and the rescuers and the least-dangerous techniques applied in the field. Within all these years of conservation thousands of snakes and other reptiles were rescued and released back in the wild. Many Snake-charmers and fishermen were arrested with the joint efforts of the Forest and the Police department for illegally capturing and confiscating snakes and turtles in several different locations.
Exploring the jungle and it’s biodiversity for various researches and projects in Behali Reserved-forest and our own localities were among the most interesting and adventurous works that we had ever done before. Locating and capturing wildlife in our camera lenses was always a hard yet joyful task which also required a lot of photographic skill and patience. Today we are really proud to declare that we are among the richest in our biodiversity and natural resources. But our concern to save the forest and the wild-life in it is still lacking in many places. For example, Wild-Elephant herds straying into our paddy-fields, destroying our crops and houses and even responsible for many human mortalities are the direct cause of Arunachal-Pradesh’s encroachment from the northern borders of Behali Reserved-forest. But just ask yourself that how many of us are still concerned about this fact and how much does it bother us...? An Elephant which is hungry, has wounds and gun-shots all over its body, and has been chased out of its only shelter is bound to attack our peaceful paddy-fields and fragile houses. Discussing the problem in many workshops, seminars, meetings and press-conferences along with various related officials and internationally renowned conservationists we have come to a simple conclusion that the one and only way to stop this menace is by protecting the elephant’s natural home the ‘Jungle’.
The most satisfactory result of all our tiny efforts is that, there is a new generation of students who are willingly very eager to protect and study our natural inheritance. Such students are being trained under the expertise of their elder brothers with the maximum guidance and encouragement. Those little guardians of nature shall also get an opportunity to train under the guidance of renowned doctors and research-persons from various wild-life organizations such CWRC (Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation) Kaziranga, CBRC (Centre for Bear Rehabilitation and Conservation) Pakke and ASZ (Assam State Zoo) Guwahati. We assure them a brighter, healthier, happier and a much greener future ahead.
Our future lies in our own hands, suppose we think of making Gangmouthan an ideal village which is green and eco-friendly, economically rich, modern and educated with a high rate of literacy, with organic agriculture and proper waste management and recycling than we must be able to protect and use all our resources. Our resources are, a vast land with fertile soil and two ever-flowing rivers to provide as much water as we need, grasslands of Kaziranga with continuous flow of strong and cool breezes, patches of moist-deciduous and ever-green forests with many endangered and indigenous species of plants and animals, wise and educated yet hard-working people from different communities and professions, a vast diversity of cultures and traditions followed, a history which talks of our glorious past and our ancestors who were brave and righteous. Keeping all these facts in mind let us write down our own future, not depending upon luck but by committed and continuous efforts, creating all the possibilities and opportunities.
During this many years of involvement in Natures Bonyapran we have found that in any given circumstance we never found ourselves alone. There were always many helping-hands to support us from the back. We would like to thank all those individuals and organizations for their kind support and co-operation.
First of all we would like to thank the Assam Forest Department staffs along with CWRC and CBRC staffs who always responded to our rescue calls with great sincerity, secondly the Assam Police Department and several NGOs who willingly joined hands with us, teachers and professors from various educational organizations are especially thanked for guiding us by all possible ways, Individual journalists and photographers from various different organizations are thanked most for showing their great courage, all the individual villagers who were the source of a great will-power and encouragement for us and at last we would like to thank our parents, family-members and beloved-ones for their outmost support and understanding.
“This body of mine, built of flesh, bones, blood, skin and sinews shall someday again be one with this earth, thus I take an oath to give every single minute of my life in the service of Mother Nature, and shall try my best to make our earth much greener, happier and a peaceful planet where all forms of life shall be equally treated and respected.”
Me with Dibakar Bharali, Amit Bhattarai, Pankaj Kattel, Bimal Khanal, Manoj Mishra and Bidur Das along with Forest Dept. Officials in Lahorijan Beat-office, before releasing a juvenile Sambar rescued at Mazgaon.
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Nabin Pokhrel, Amit Chetry, Ajay Sharma, Amit Bhattarai with the Forest Dept. Range Officer in Borgang Range-office, along with three Burmese Rock-pythons rescued in Sonitpur-east.
Me and Ujjal Khatiwoda with the Slow-loris which had been rescued by us.
Elephant calf rescued and handed over to C.W.R.C. Kaziranga.
Paddy fields damaged by wild Elephants at Bahabari pathar.
Bar-headed geese poisoned by farmers.
Deer rescued and on the way to release, during the floods in K.N.P.
