Hunters turn protectors in Manas reserve

The world has acknowledged Kaziranga as one of the most successful conservation stories in the last 100 years, despite the occasional poaching. Some 400 km west of Kaziranga is Manas national park and reserve, perhaps richer and more diverse, but overshadowed by Kaziranga’s glamour and tainted by its insurgency.

Straddling the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan terrains, 500 sq km of Manas is in India and 1,000 sq km in Bhutan. Declared a Project Tiger reserve in 1973, it is also an elephant reserve and biosphere reserve. Apart from tigers and elephants, leopards, clouded leopards, golden cats, leopard cats, pangolins, rhinoceros, water buffalos, gaurs, swamp deer and pygmy hogs call this place home.

In 1985, the UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site. But the late eighties and early nineties saw its wildlife and forest wealth being plundered. Tribal Bodo militants used the reserve as a safe haven, felling trees and killing wildlife to buy weapons. In 1992, the UNESCO demoted it to World Heritage Site in Danger for the ‘severe damages to the ecosystem’.

Manas faced the prospect of being removed completely from the list of world heritage sites, says Vivek Menon, South Asia regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Just in time, however, around 2003 the situation began to improve. Finally, last month, at the 35th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in Paris, the ‘danger’ tag over Manas was lifted.

This augurs well for conservation efforts in India, when relatively prosperous countries like Germany and Oman failed to revive their heritage sites. Germany’s Dresden Elbe Valley and Oman’s Arabian Oryx Sanctuary were deleted from the World Heritage Site list altogether in 2009 and 2007 respectively. Manas, on the other hand, can now approach world bodies to support its conservation, on the back of the restoration of its status.

The Bodo peace accord
UNESCO acknowledged that Manas’ resurrection was possible because of the synergy between the government, wildlife activists and people living around the reserve.

“The turnaround began in 2003 after the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) gave up their weapons,” says Aninda Swargowari, field director of Manas. This was after the signing of the Bodo Peace Accord, leading to the creation of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).

Now the locals had a stake in protecting the reserve, which falls under the BTC. “It dawned on them that Manas is their property and then came the role-reversal. The rebels, who once ravaged the reserve, took to protecting it,” says Swargowari.

“Our financial state was precarious. It was difficult to live even from hand to mouth. It was sheer poverty that made me a poacher,” says 33-year-old Rabiram, a father of two, who is now a forest guard at Manas, adding that now he will lay down his life if required to protect the wildlife there.

The poachers used to kill animals with hand-made guns called Gajimara, using gun powder to make Sisha (bullets). They were all sharpshooters, an equally useful skill to have once they turned into guards.

Rabiram gets a collective monthly remuneration of around Rs3,300 from the forest department and the BTC, apart from subsidised rations. “I know it’s not much but it has given me peace of mind,” he says.

The tales of Baneswar Boro, 35, and Kanchan Kherkatari, 31, both ex-poachers, follow a similar pattern.

“My father died when I was five years old. I saw my mother slog to run the family of four. When I grew up I took to poaching because that was at hand. My mother never objected to it as it brought us some money which was desperately needed,” says Kanchan, who has three children of his own now. “I will never kill them [the animals] again because our sustenance depends on their survival,” he adds.

“Had we been better off, we would have never killed the animals,” agrees Baneswar. “I have two kids and a wife at home. We go home once in a fortnight on rotation,” he adds.

NGO showed the way
The poachers-turned-guards are all locals, some 40 of them. Ten others are working with the Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Society (MMES), an NGO.

The role of the MMES has perhaps been the most significant in the conservation story. “The brainchild of the All Bodo Students’ Union, MMES came into being in 2003 with the express purpose of reviving Manas which had been ravaged during the two movements of the Bodos. “Former BLT militants, ex-poachers, wildlife activists and locals came forward to help. We moved around villages in the fringe areas of Manas to create awareness. Today, it gives us immense pleasure to see the destroyers turned into protectors,” says MMES secretary Phwjwngsar Narzari.

“Our vision is to bring about the socio-economic and educational development of the community living on the fringe areas of Manas through sustainable conservation and responsible tourism,” he adds.

MMES pays all its members engaged in conservation, generating funds by selling handicraft items, books, and souvenirs. It also gets funds from the government and donations from wildlife lovers.

Life is not easy at the camps inside Manas. “Our camp is yet to be electrified and so we have to be careful when night falls. We live on rice and vegetables. Sometimes there won’t be any salt, but we don’t make it an issue,” the ex-poachers say.

“We want Manas to shine on the world map. We believe the efforts of so many people engaged in conservation cannot go in vain,” they add.