I
went to Manas National park for the
first time with hopes and excitement and all the memories of Jungle Book,
Tarzan. When I saw the gate of Manas national park, from a distance, our car
was passing through the midst of tea garden everywhere and I felt that there lies this amazing place, magical Manas, a world heritage
site where the giants such as tiger, elephants,
One horned Rhinoceros roams. After getting the pass in the gate, we slowly
entered toward the magical realm of animals and plants. Passing through the
dense jungle, I started hearing the birds chirping and the sound of Manas river
flowing and it does sound like as if a waterfall is nearby. Then I noticed a
flock of parrots singing in a tall tree, some forest songs, that I could not
understand and I felt that they were singing joyful songs as they were jumping
from one branch to another. As our jeep slowly moving towards , I see all these
big and tall trees, along the road, I
feel as if I come across in a fantasy land from Toikein’s world of the Lord of
the ring. Everywhere I looked, there was these dense forest, and the leaves are
shining ever so brightly in the sunlight. I wondered as we still moved forward,
where are the animals, my companions, my brother, my uncle and our guide, they
were also enjoying the travel though Manas national park. Everywhere I looked,
there was dense forests and medicinal
plants. As I go through, I hear the sound of water flow more clearly. Then
after going about 10 km, we reached a small but fast tributary flowing out of
Manas river, there we stopped our Jeep, I saw the place, and it was small river
flowing through the dense forest. Then I saw an old foreigner man with some
other people. They had big cameras and were unpacking their camera sets. I
approached him with curiosity and asked him very politely, ’Excuse me, Where are you from ?, He said ” I am from
Australia with an Australian accent, The he asked us,” where are you from’’. I
said, ‘’ we are from the neighboring village.” I asked him what is that he was
doing here and he said,’’ we are making a documentary and I asked , ‘ are you from BBC, he said ,’’
No, we are from Discovery. It was a great
opportunity for me to meet a film director of wildlife documentary, I wanted to
ask him everything related filmmaking as I have always aspired to become one. I
asked again about the theme of the documentary, He did not understood the first
time and I asked him again, He said that it’s about the mighty river
Brahmaputra, the biodiversity, culture , religion of people connected to rivers
in the Indo-Himalayan region. He also said that they have been doing this
documentary for over a year and there are people from India, Australia and
other continents. Manas was their last stoppage, they have already did shooting
in Tibet, Arunachal, Kaziranga, Meghalaya. Then I said to him about my interest
in film making, and then he said that there is not much money in it and you have
to stay away from home for long duration. I asked him, if we can watch the
process and he said,’’ yeah, if you have the time. Then I said,” we should have
the time for the things we are interested about. I asked him about the name of
the documentary and he said that it was Sky River of Himalayas’’. I wrote my name, email, and blog address and
gave him the page,and then he wrote his name, Jeremy Hogarth’ in the notebook. After
shaking our hands, I left them and went further ahead in the jungle crossing
the bridge and after a while we reach a place with tall grasses. In the grasslands,
there were some compressed places most probably made by wild elephants.
Meanwhile many cars, trucks and jeeps crossed us, with school students,
young-adults, foreigners. The trucks were coming from Bhutan with Bhutanese
people coming to Assam. After a while, we reached camp named Kanchanbari camp,
where we stopped. The camp was surrounded by electric fencing to protect
themselves from mostly elephants. There were four forester living in the watching camp. These people were very friendly and
talked about the animals they could see from their camp in the evening. They
said that you could see more animals in the evening more than in the morning.
The animals such as Elephants, Peacocks almost comes very near to their camp.
There was this one young forester, Utpal Kuamr Das, he was from a nearby
village called Kahitama and I asked about the village people and what they
think about Manas, he said that they don’t know much about the importance of
Manas as a world heritage site and people think of Manas as just a jungle.
There in the camp, I met with another forester, his name was Golap Ali, he has
been working in Manas for more than 30 years, and he told some of his stories that
both frightened me and made me feel sad. He was attacked by a Tiger, and
tiger’s claw ripped flesh in the right stomach. He was also attacked by a mad
elephant named Ranjit, who has killed many people in the forest. Golap used to
ride the elephant and that elephant smacked him with his trunk, now the man has
rheumatism, but still he has not received any governmental support or any award
for his bravery. This kind of neglect of government towards the people working
all their life for the conservation of
Manas or any national park, does not inspire the people to work towards
conservation. The people working as guards in the National parks should get the
essential facility such food, transportation, medicine etc., if not provided,
the forest guards are not going to be happy, Which I think that is may be a
underlying reason for poaching.
In
the sanctuary there are 60 species of mammals, 350 birds,
42 reptiles, and 7 amphibians, 54 fishes
and more than 100 insects. Out of these wildlife, 21 mammals are India’s
Schedule I mammals and 31of them are threatened. There are about 543 species
plants recorded. But tourist may complain that they could sight as much as
animals like Kaziranga, which is because of
the low population density of Manas. It is because Manas Biosphere
Reserve extends oven an huge area of 2837 sq. Km from the river Sankosh in the
west and Dhansiri in the east, with an core area of 500 sq. Km of the Manas
National Park and it is a great feeling to say that Manas has more biodiversity
than any National park in India. According to our Tourist guide, the sighting
of animals in the month of December is
less, because of the rush of tourist, but in the month the sighting of animal
is much more.
The fauna of the sanctuary include Indian elephants, Indian rhinoceros, gaurs,
Asian water buffaloes, barasingha, Indian tigers, Indian leopards, clouded
leopards, Asian golden cats, dholes,capped langurs, golden langurs, Assamese
macaques, slow loris, hoolock gibbons, smooth-coated otters, sloth bears,
barking deers, hog deers, black panthers, sambar deers and chitals. In our
journey we were able to see the rarest golden langurs near Mathanguri at the Indo-Bhutan region. We were also lucky to see
elephants in the greassland, buffalo and boars which made our journey amazing.
Seeing these wild animals in their habitat , it
made me think about the need of conservation of the animal habitat even
more. Manas is known as the one of the biggest tiger reserve forest in the
world, and it is not easy to spot a tiger. We were not lucky to see a tiger,
because it takes time. But we could see some deers in the forest and it was
wonderful. Manas is also known for the endangered pygmy hogs, which are very
hard to see. They are always in hiding, it takes great amount of time to see
them . One of the things I noticed in
the forest is the man-made wild-fire, and I could see smokes rising from more
than 3 to 4 locations around in the grassland region, where the animals graze,
it is also the region, where we spotted two Peacocks searching for food in the
afternoon. My uncle said these fires are made by poachers, so they could easily
hunt animals.
The
park is well known for species of rare and endangered wildlife that are not
found anywhere else in the world like the Assam roofed turtle, hispid hare,
golden langur and pygmy hog. There are also pythons available in the forest,
but we did not see them. We also sighted capped langurs in Mathanguri range.
The Manas hosts more
than 350 species of birds, out of which 26 species are globally threatened. It has the largest population of the
endangered Bengal florican to be found anywhere and used to be sold in markets
of Kokilabari, another range of Manas. In our travel, we were lucky enough see
some birds such the peacocks, Parakeets, eagle and kites.
Conservation
is the most important goal of any National parks, sanctuaries. Manas National
Park is one of the most important world heritage site in the world, that harbors
a great number of Animals and plants, many of them are medicinal plants. The
main enemy that threats the Manas National park was always been poaching. The
long violence in region has killed Rhinoceros into local extinction. in the
that started in and around the landscape In the late 1980 politico-ethnic
disturbance started by the Bodo community demanding greater political rights
and powers. The violence that followed
caused large-scale damage to Manas, with the habitat, wildlife, and management
and protection activities suffering immensely. It also led to the local
extinction of the great Indian one horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) and the swamp deer (Cervus duvauceli rangitsinhi).
But in recent last 5 years, rhinos from Kaziranga are being established here. Translocation
under the aegis of the Indian Rhino
Vision 2020 ( IRV- 2020) since 2006, with support of Govt. of Assam in
collaboration with Wildlife Trust of Indai (WTI), Bodoland Territorial Council,
WWF-India, International Rhino Foundation and US Fish and Wildlife Service.In 2016, now, there
are 32 plus One horned Rhinoceros and
last year it was 27. In recent 2013-14, WTI has started translocation of
Swamp deers. Currently several organizations, including the World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF-India programme), Aaranyak and ATREE/ UNESCO are collaborating to
provide technical support to the government’s efforts at scientifically
estimating the wildlife/tiger population in Manas. The NGO Aaranyak has projects
on livelihood inhibition, tiger, wild-dog , Bengal Florican. ATREE has also
livelihood programs going to help people get an alternative way of income other
than poaching in the forest. The high amounts of efforts of conservationist,
NGO and government and good will of BTAD political leaders. The current Forest
minister of Assam Pramila Rani Brahma
who is also very active in conservation.
Now the people are also changing their perspectives towards Manas, many young
people are getting involved. The most positive aspect of Manas in current
situation is that the militants that used to kill the animals are now
protecting them and working with NGO and governments. That is surely boost the
tourism, as there is no more militants to fear in the Manas and it makes me
feel like a change is coming, foreign tourist numbers are increasing, I myself met two groups of foreigners from
Australia. Discovery had also made a documentary about Manas this year named “Manas, Return of
the Giants”, and there is also documentary named “ Sky river of the Himalays’’
in making, where I had the great the opportunity to interact with the director.
All these positive steps makes me proud to live nearby Manas. But well
known N.G.O such as Aaranyak and ATREE
is giving trainings to people in nearby villages about the need of conservation
of forests and animals. . This year the Aaranyak manager Dr. Bibhuti Lahkar was
awarded the UNESCO World Heritage hero award for his great effort in
conservation of Manas National Park for 20 years or so. He became the first
person in Asia win such as a award who inspired me a great deal to work in conservation even more
now. So, the passion grew stronger in me and in my college I found more
students interested in conservation. So, we decided to create a N.G.O. about
conservation, we named the N.G.O as JIBAKUL( Sanctuary for life ) and now it
has been registered.
Manas
takes its name from the Hindu Goddess Manasa. The forests of the Reserve were
traditionally inhabited and their resources used mainly by Bodo and Adhivasi
tribesmen, though the area was also preserved as royal hunting grounds for two
royal families. There are about 60
villages or more with 28,800
inhabitants live on the fringe of the National Park, predominantly Assamese,
Bodo, Tea-tribe, Nepalese, Bengali
people. The paddy culture is most
important source of income for the people of fringe village . As people of 5
ethnicity live in the region, there are sometimes misunderstanding and fights
among the tribes, but it is now mostly peaceful all around the area. People of
Bansbari range has got into tourism now more than ever. The people are
developing even more now, because there are many local NGO groups that are
bringing the inspiration towards the development, such as MEWS( Manas Ever
Welfare Society) , MMES( Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Eco-tourism Societies are
developing tourism sides. One of the major thing of 2016 is the developing of
the Indo-Bhutan road through Manas, which is mostly complete very much boost
the prospect of tourism. Most people of
fringe area of Manas speaks Assamese. The people of the area celebrates a great
many festival all around the area. Most celebrated festival is Bihu in three
season, Kati Bihu in the autumn, Magh Bihu in Winter and Bohag bihu in Summer.
Bodo people also celebrate bihu, along with 16 Kunthia Bathow puja, 18 Khunthia
Bathow puja. The other festival is Durga puja, celebrated by all people. Most
tea tribes are involved in tea garden, some people are involved in tourism and work as teacher. They have a dance called
Jhumur dance, which is a very beautiful group dance. Such as the people of
Manas, working towards a greater future, but the fast pacing modern world is
hard to keep up with. Still a lot of development is necessary, mostly conservation and environmental education that
would teach them the importance of Manas and how much rare biodiversity it harbors.
From the latest report of 2016, it says that the number of visitor has
increased. Because the roads connected to Manas are in a much better than ever before, it is very easy to visit
Manas. The number of resort and lodge are increasing day by the day to sustain
huge number of tourists. There are about
9 resort and lodge in the Bansbari range, which is the most developed range
among all three range, Bansbari, Bhuyanpara and Kokilabari. There are accommodations such Bunglow in Mathanguri, if one wish to stay for the
night. We stayed night in the Mathanguri
Bunglow and we saw the buffaloes in the morning and eagles and the spectacular
view of the Bhutan Hills, where the Royal Manas National park that covers an huge
area 1057 sqkm.
The travel to Manas National Park provides ample scope for gathering knowledge
relationship to Conservation and towards field. Conservation of biodiversity in
ex situ is important task for everyone otherwise we have to observe all
biodiversity in Zoos only. My experience in Manas is the most wonderful journey
of my life. I welcome everyone to visit Manas just for once, it’s a sanctuary
for life, a safe haven for animals in the most realest sense.
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