Aaranyak

 

When asked about what sort of lessons the organization learned throughout the implementation of its project, Dr. Bibhuti P. Lahkar responded with a positive reflection of the process.

As we were striving to achieve the objectives of the programme we became richer in experience and aware of ground realities in many aspects.

Dr. Bibhuti P Lahkar of Aaranyak shares several lessons learned during implementation of the project and how they adapted, which he describes below.

1. It was a great opportunity for us to be able to work closely with the forest managers, policy makers and local stakeholders. Through interactions with forest managers of different divisions, we learnt about some vital shortcomings in forest management like lack of an information database on the Manas Tiger Reserve (MTR) and necessary informative maps of MTR, etc. The department is not well equipped to discharge its responsibility of forest protection and species conservation to address issues of sluggishness sometimes creeping into the protection mechanism and timber smugglers trying to exploit it to their advantage. We received tremendous support from the forest department. The staff of different divisions of MTR had helped us in collecting data from the various areas.

2. We were faced with a peculiar problem of ‘bandhs’ (strikes/shut downs) called by various organizations; bomb blasts that bring life to a temporary halt and some other forms of political turmoil that presented themselves to be significant obstacles in our efforts to stipulate a time-frame. As a result we had to change our work plan frequently. Dilapidated road conditions in project sites were also another hindrance in proper planning. Therefore, we had to increase the number of days allocated to field work to compensate for loss of working hours.

3. Widespread encroachment of forest land and indiscriminate felling of trees have severely degraded the forest cover. Villagers continue to clear the forest land and occupy it with the misplaced hope that they will get official allotment for the occupied land in the future. People also took advantage of the fragile laws in place, such as the Forest Right Act and the lack of order that prevailed in the area during the last decade in order to grab forestland.

4. The Manas Tiger Reserve areas are dotted with numbers of forest villages. Many of these forest villages were known to be set up during the erstwhile colonial British regime while the rest came up after independence. A significant thing about those villages is that most of the village heads (or Gaonburah) do not have proper information about their villages like population, household numbers as the census is not carried out at regular basis. We have also come across forest villages and many unofficial sub villages. A peculiar situation prevails in these forest villages comprising people from several communities with each of the communities headed by their own headman. The head man of the particular community is often found unable to say anything regarding the other communities in the village. In some segments, rivers originating from the neighbouring Bhutan Himalayas cause extensive damage to the forest villages, especially during the rainy season. As those rivers change course during the flood damaging croplands, the villagers are compelled to shift to new areas for arable land and that leads to further encroachment of forest areas.

5. In some areas, we noticed that the forest lands were converted to the landuse patterns of crop land (Mustard seed, vegetables etc) and monotypic plantation of betel-nut and bamboo grooves. Even Sashatra  Seema Bol (SSB) camps set up to keep vigil along India-Bhutan border have cleared huge tracts of forest for security of their camps and personnel.

6. We found that it was very difficult to distinguish between recognized forest villages and encroached villages as the data received from the forest department were not very clear. The forest department apparently doesn’t keep tab on fresh encroachment taking place within the MTR.

7. The Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) administration has involved local NGOs in the conservation movement. The administration also facilitates training for these NGOs. But due to the lack of sufficient equipment, the NGO members face problems while on patrol in the forest.

Adaptations

• Promotion of education and conservation awareness among people living in buffer areas of MTR has been the basic agenda for Manas management. Formation of forest protection groups by BTC government is a good initiative.
  
• Local communities should be made to understand about limitations of any project at the beginning of the project. People living near forest area are poor and under developed. While collecting data on villages, on numerous occasions we have experienced that villagers request for medical help, a sports facility, development of communication infrastructure, etc. However, we make them understand that our project has limitations and we work on restricted field research not economic development.
  
• As the majority of the work in the project was GIS based, initially it was very difficult to convince some stakeholders like community leaders, and even some villagers. Hence they were not supportive during the project, asking of the team exactly what these maps will give them. However, when we made them understand about the long term benefits of the project, they were more responsive and supported us.
  
• It is not always easy to anticipate between the project time frame during project writing and the completion of the project's activities, so remaining flexible is the key to success.

The Project at a glance