When poachers turn protectors

KOLKATA: Villagers in Sunderbans have taken a pledge to protect wildlife I Sunderbans.

He used to be a poacher, but today Anil Krishna Mistry preaches conservation with a missionary zeal in the Sunderbans, India’s biggest tiger reserve and the world’s largest mangrove gene pool.

And he also symbolises the massive initiative under way in the archipelago that is turning villagers, once foes of the big cats, into its friends.

“Killing animals was a habit we inherited. I was into poaching till I got involved in conservation efforts from 1999. That changed everything and from poacher I became a protector,” says Mistry, now principal field officer of noted conservationist Belinda Wright’s Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).

His stoic face breaks into a smile as hundreds of children in this island - as part of animal week celebrations - shout out a pledge to protect the endangered tiger population of the Sunderbans.

Today the likes of Anil inspire so many, says Wright.

“Small boys and girls now go to the villages and tell their parents, relatives, neighbours not to kill animals. The Sunderbans children are real tough and they say ‘don’t kill the deer, don’t kill the tiger’.

“It is a modest beginning but a very positive one,” says Wright aboard a launch that cuts through the vast Sunderbans canvas.

Wright, whose WPSI now implements a conservation project in Sundarbans, was in the island to celebrate with a large number of school children the World Animal Week that is observed every year from Oct 4 to 10.

“We go about telling people that tiger is our pride and we have to protect it. We also tell them that if we kill deer we will only cause peril to ourselves since tigers, which prey on deer for food, would then stray into our human habitation and prey on us,” says Parthapratim, a 15-year-old boy.