The previous afternoon, the same group, comprising mostly young and sincere foresters, had listened closely as a Forest Ranger recounted how he had dealt with local villagers entering the National Park—in violation of the wildlife law—everyday to gather firewood. The group was training to manage reserves under our wildlife, forest and environmental laws. “The villagers know it is illegal to collect firewood from the park, but they still come in,” the Ranger thundered. “So, with help from our local watchers, we identified every villager who came in and booked trespass cases against them. They received a reprimand from the magistrate, and a warning that they would be jailed for repeat offences. From that day, all firewood collection in the park stopped.” The group looked suitably impressed. Then, the group’s instructor asked, “What did the villagers do for firewood then? Did they have alternative sources?” The Ranger replied, “No, these forests are their only source of firewood, but you see, it is not our job to find them alternatives. Our job is simply to implement the law.” The trainee foresters nodded in agreement.

Seen separately, these two anecdotes are unremarkable. But taken together, they raise important questions about the very nature of law and its enforcement, especially in the context of wildlife conservation. Why would a group of people with abiding faith in the tenets of one law, reject entirely, those of another? And, if the enforcers of our wildlife laws could thumb their noses at the copyright law, would it be fundamentally wrong if villagers outside the National Park did likewise to the wildlife law?

Given that over 250 million Indians depend on forests for their daily needs, there is no doubt that even modest acts such as firewood gathering can have a huge impact on our forests. But it is also amply clear that just enacting and enforcing laws to keep forest-dependent people out has simply not worked. Take the example of Bandipur National Park. Although it is illegal to gather firewood from its forests, most of the 40,000 households residing outside Bandipur, including families of forest staff, have done so for decades. What the law expressly forbids—firewood collection, in this instance—has always seemed a totally reasonable thing to do, not just to local villagers but also to the forest guards who implement the law. And the consequences for Bandipur’s forests have been severe. So, how can such a law actually be made enforceable?

The solution is beautifully demonstrated in the story of Namma Sangha, an organisation that has quietly set up a cooking gas distribution service now covering 35,000 households that earlier depended on Bandipur for firewood. Today, with most households having cooking gas, they are less reliant on the forests. But there’s a subtler, more significant change Namma Sangha’s work has brought about. By widening access to cooking gas as the alternative to firewood in these villages, Namma Sangha made the decades-old legal restrictions on firewood collection seem more reasonable, and hence, more enforceable. To be enforceable, a law thus needs, not just the weight of legality behind it, but also the force of legitimacy.

Any law has a greater chance of being effective if it is also reasonable. Is it any surprise then that there is less of a moral dilemma in condemning an ivory poacher than a villager gathering a head-load of firewood to cook a meal for her family? Adherence to the law will remain a distant dream if we continue to thoughtlessly enact and enforce legislations, even well-meaning ones, that criminalise reasonableness. Some of the biggest threats to our wildlife still come from the reasonable acts of ordinary people. And to fight these threats, we sure must employ the law, but not before we have employed reasonableness.

M. D. Madhusudan and Pavithra Sankaran
This article appeared in Down To Earth issued dated 15 November 2011 http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/staying-legal-staying-reasonable

Much before this classic took the world by awe, several seas away in a remote corner of another continent, a similar tale had been composed. The writers of that multi-authored epic came from the Far West to change the fate of a terra incognita, where wilderness abounded and where a thriving civilization had long collapsed, unceremoniously and tragically. It was the story of an unbroken swathe of jungle nestled in the flood-plain of the Brahmaputra river in Assam and its transformation into parcels of land, surrounded by a brewing landscape. And it was the story of a family of several souls, whose fate was sealed forever in one such sliced piece: Hollongapar and its primates who continuing solitude of over one hundred years may last to perpetuity.

However, unlike the fate of Macondo’s founding Buendia family—one that eventually perishes after six tumultuous generations—Hollongapar’s family has successfully fought for and earned their lives against all odds. And in contrast to Úrsula’s (the matriarch of the Buendia family) fear of the potential birth of a pig-tailed child in her family—one that eventually comes true at the end of the story—the pigtails of Hollongapar are struggling to further their lineage, ironically for the same reason—an incestuous legacy. Both are the products of extreme transgressions—one against culture and the other against nature.

However, if one peeled the layers of the history of Hollongapar’s forests, one would find the seed of this story formed long ago, the year 1687 to be precise. An Ahom king, Gadadhar Singha, mobilised several thousands of dhods (lazy persons) of his kingdom—who pretended to be sluggish in order to skip compulsory royal service—to construct a 212-km road through this forest that connects Kamargaon in Golaghat to Joypur in Dibrugarh.  Aptly named the Dhodar Ali (the sluggard’s road), the road came to delineate the southern periphery of Hollongapar. Perhaps a narrow brown strip of mud and dirt at the time, but a wide, rolling black belt of asphalt years later; today it separates two worlds—one that supports nature’s and other nourish and nurture state’s economy.

The Bhogdoi stream on the eastern flank of the forest, which was deepened to channelise the surplus water of the Disoi River and prevent flooding; also separates the forest from the small dusty and bustling town of Mariani today.

These forests once were an important resource for the Ahom kings, who could fall back on them whenever they needed timbers to build boats, an indispensible component of their naval fleet. Riding on their strength, the naval infantry of the Ahom kingdom had been able to defeat invaders as formidable as the Mughals. Just as the sal and teak forests of North and South India won the British Crown many a battle, so did these forests for the Ahoms.

Arriving in the Upper Brahmaputra valley at the behest of the Ahom king to aid the kingdom in defeating Burmese invaders, the British had no intention of staying back in a land full of “inferior” jungles, wild beasts and a sparse human population; it was not tempting enough to seduce their colonial lust. Then, someone struck ‘green gold’ in the valley.

And a war against these forests began. Forgotten were their glorious contribution to Assam’s past and the promise they held for its future. Use of these vast forests now took the form of desecration rather than veneration. The coming of the colonial British changed the historical trajectory of Hollongapar forever.

****

One fine morning in the late nineteenth century in Hollongapar, a pair of gibbons wakes up from deep slumber. The sun had just emerged from the horizon and the cool breeze of the morning had a nostalgic feel. The pair couldn’t help themselves but sing. A song of freedom, of contentment, and of a carefree future. A song of the deep rainforest! Swinging from one branch to another, they looked ethereal. They traversed through the canopy, merging with the dappled sunlight and leaves as they went further.

Suddenly everything turned quiet! The breeze carried an unfamiliar whiff, the sun seemed to blaze harder; they had reached the end of a seemingly eternal freedom.

They found the forest before them had gone. The umbilical strip of trees that kept it connected with the swathe of forests on the other side had been snapped, replaced by numerous saplings of a shrub the world would later know and cherished as Assam tea.

Since that eventful day when they had discovered a new world beyond the tree line, the gibbons watched tea saplings coming into their jungle from every direction. By the time the pair reached a ripe old age, the saplings which now became bushes, had enveloped the entire forest within it. Their hearts knew there was no escape from this isolation.

The forest kept shrinking further until one day, it suddenly stopped. Several khaki-clad white men were seen in the forest, clearing edges, erecting pillars and measuring its periphery. The gibbons watched, uncomprehendingly. Their home even got a new name—the Hollongapar Reserve Forest. That was the summer of 1881.

Only last winter their son had left the family and was seen courting a female in the vicinity of the group. Soon, one more pair of songs added to the forest orchestra, a sign that their son had successful wooed his lover. They might now have a second generation roaming in the remaining forest. But unbeknownst to them, somebody had already decided their fate.

Nobody knew who saw it first–some say it was the stump-tailed macaques during their foraging tour—a clearing as straight as the trunk of the hollong through the middle of the forest. Looking at the unfamiliar bare strip, the oldest female, who was leading the troop, decided to abort the tour and adjusted her troop’s route for the rest of the day, never realising it was the start of a new routine that would last forever. Months later, she saw two long ‘poles’ lying parallel to each other on a raised platform all along the clearing as far as her eyes could see. Their forest was neatly sliced into two unequal parts.

She would never forget the day when a moving beast whizzed passed her with a deafening sound, leaving a trail of black smoke hovering over the forest. The smoke infiltrated the fragrant forest air with its soot and an obnoxious smell that overpowered all senses.

She wondered about the gibbon pair on the other side of the clearing, who would perhaps never been able to free themselves from the clutches of solitude. And she wondered about the rest of the valley, its forests, its creatures, many of them her kin and cousins, and about her own future.

****

With time, the moving beasts called trains made their brief but unpleasant appearances more frequently, carrying away coal, tea and oil from the valley and bringing in dark-skinned people from far away lands. These terrified and fragile looking, near skeletal people arrived in huge numbers and many settled down along the edges of the forest.

Initially, after their arrival, they were seen working in the middle of the bushes, plucking the leaves with their feeble but deft hands. Their dark-skinned bodies and gaunt faces distinct against the light green of the bushes. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, none rested. Only the toddlers, who slept on the cloth hammocks tied to the unfamiliar Albizzia trees amidst the bushes, were free from everything.

Source: http://siris-archives.si.edu as mentioned in http://tinyurl.com/3szadnc

Much later, the new people began to come into the forest to collect outenga, dhekia, bamboo, honey and many other things. First only a few, but slowly hordes of them. Abject poverty, frequent hunger and an uncertain future pushed them deeper into the forest.

The journey these wretched people had made to this ‘Promised Land’ had been marred by unthinkable miseries. During the sojourn many lost their lives to epidemics that broke out on the ships that sailed the Brahmaputra. Those who discovered the betrayal of the contractors who had lured them with promises of a better future and dared raise their voice, were rested forever at the bottom of the river. Only those who defied everything reached the valley. Shaken and terrified to the core; each one’s dream had long died in the arduous journey, each one had already resigned to his fate. Exactly the kind of labourers their white masters were looking for.

Source: http://siris-archives.si.edu mentioned in http://tinyurl.com/3mbm4ve

Like Paul Robson’s Mississippi, Bhupen Hazarika’s Burah Luit kept ferrying these destitutes into the valley, neither affected by the miseries nor moved by their cries. It flowed relentlessly; at once providing hope by enriching the land with its deposits and eroding the same land as if venting its anger. The poor peasants on its banks were always in a conundrum whether to venerate the whimsical river or be terrified by its might.

****

India was winding up the third anniversary celebrations of its newly-acquired freedom when the young Soneswar prepared to retire to bed. He had been preoccupied with a single thought the whole day. The river was rapidly approaching his land; if it got washed away Soneswar would have no other livelihood. He knew that his fight against the might of the Brahmaputra was an unequal one and sooner or later, he would have to accept the inevitable. But it hardly occurred to him that it would come so early. That evening, the entire valley shuddered in a tremor that shattered everything including Soneswar’s hopes. It was the worst earthquake the valley had witnessed in a century.

The next day, he sensed something strange about the Brahmaputra. The ‘Old’ river had surprisingly gathered much strength overnight and was looking mightier than ever before. Within a fortnight, Soneswar had lost his land. He was now one of the many ecological refugees that Brahmaputra creates year after year.

Months later, after the quake, several miles away, the seeming tranquility of the Hollongapar was about to vanish forever. Soneswar was among the first to clear a patch of forest for a new beginning; away from the unpredictable vagaries of nature and in hope for a better future. Many joined him; almost everyone had similar stories to tell. Within a decade or so, Hollongapar was virtually sieged by Madhupur, Lakhipur, Rampur, Fesual, Velleuguri, Afolamukh and Kaliagaon leaving human footprints everywhere in the rapidly shrinking forest, which retreated to a mere shadow of its past.

As for the gibbons, the stumptails and others, the solitude was nearing eternal.

The final blow came in 1965 when a huge chunk of Hollongapar was taken away to establish several hutments for the Army under the pretext that the nation’s safety was paramount. Within that chunk, everything was cleared. The tall hollong trees, the thickets of bamboo; the undergrowth of palms, the carpet of aathubhanga. Nothing survived the mayhem. The slow loris too could not outpace the human’s axe. And the pigtails and the langurs? These fortunate ones were able to pack themselves into the remaining parcel of forest, competing with each other over depleting space and food.

****

For the last three years, I have watched closely the remaining populations of primates in Hollongapar. The forest has received a promotion for successfully protecting its primates for so many decades: it is now the Hollongapar Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary—the tall tree and the ape are synonymous with this forest island.

The Dhodar Ali and the railway track have prevailed. The moving beasts still make regular appearances and carry on their tails tea, coal and oil. But it has stopped bringing the dark-skinned souls − known to us today as the “tea tribes”. Old Soneswar is still there, still hoping for a better future and struggling to eke out a living on his meager piece of land. The Army camp and the tea gardens are bustling with their usual activities. Only the bushes and the white masters have been replaced but their legacy endures.

The old female stump-tailed macaque, one who first saw the railway track, is no more, but her descendants have survived this solitude. But, only a few hundred are left. They still come up to the railway track and still never dare cross it. Unlike their predecessors though, they have to comb the entire forest looking for food and shelter. Even for this, they have competition—with other primates as well as the dark-skinned people who still come inside the forest in huge numbers, pushed by the same century-old forces.

The pair of gibbons on the other side of the railway track have long gone but three other families are still around. They often come to the edge of the forest, sometimes catching a glimpse of their own kind on the other side of the track, instinctively burst into song. Today, their voices carry more aggression, and perhaps a note of desperation too. But, maybe both of them understand the futility: neither of them will be able to cross this gap to claim other’s territory or even to console each other. Although the gap is only a few strides, their separation looks eternal.

In Hollongapar, everything has survived these tumultuous centuries: the animals, the trees, the people, the solitude, the poverty, the hunger, the hope. Except the Assamese macaque, for none have been sighted since 2005. Is it the beginning of the end?

Or are one hundred years of solitude too soon to write a requiem for Hollongapar and its primates?

A bird eye view of the Bomdo village with the Siang river in the background

I could go on and on but this account is mostly about a hunting trip I made to the banks of the Angong river. This year too as every year we have set up temporary hunting camps a days’ walk away from the village. From the months November till February we venture fortnightly in small groups of three to four people into forests that extend from right below the 3000 m tall Mouling peak to those adjoining the mighty Angong river. During these five months we target large-bodied animals like barking deers, serows, wild pigs and bears and bring the meat back to the village for the Aran festival² in the last week of February. In this festival its our custom to distribute meat to clan members. In Bomdo, we have the Panga, Medo, Lonchung, Duggong, Nyodo, Yalik and Tali clans, of which I belong to the first. My team has Petang and Sikung in it, both good companions, excellent hunters and good at carrying load, in case our catch is good.

Our Sipu camp close to the Angong river bank

We were planning our last visit to the Sipu camp on the banks of the Angong river hoping to get lucky since the meat we collected, meticulously smoke-dried and cached in our camp was raided by a sun bear and we lost most of it. The evening before we left, Tigbo, a friend of mine from Bangalore, casually asked me if he can join me. I’ve seen Tigbo walk the mountains around our village and I think he can endure the trek we plan, so I tell him to get ready by 3 am the next morning and to pack only essentials since it was going to be a long trek. It was February, the time of the year best suited for hunting; no dangerous snakes, no rain and a pleasant cold weather. I had laid three dozen cable wire slip knot traps a fortnight ago and was hoping to trap a few animals. We have to return every fortnight to make sure the animals caught in the traps do not get eaten by other meat eaters in the forest. Also, sometimes we abandon our catch since the animals get trapped and then get rotten.

The next morning at about 2.30 am, I reached Tigbo’s place, a Forest Department Inspection Bungalow built over an abandoned graveyard. I was glad he was up and ready but was worried about his huge backpack; whether he can carry it to the Sipu camp on the banks of the Angong river and back. We started our uphill trek along a torch-lit path and I was quite impressed with the way Tigbo was climbing up the hill, much faster than us, but I was still wary about how long his beginner’s luck would last. Two hours later we reached Yabo Roglé³, a resting place. Here we met another hunting party who had left earlier than us and from here on the eight of us were to walk till the Angong river together, for, our hunting camps are located close to each other.

The view from Yabo Roglé, looking back at Bomdo village

Two dead capped langurs hung on a tree by the other hunting team

After climbing down from Yabo Roglé, three more hills had to be crossed to get to Angong. By this time, Tigbo had mentioned that his knees were hurting and was lagging behind. By about 8 am, we had crossed another hill and it was time for breakfast. Tigbo was by then limping and complained that climbing down was getting tougher. We had our breakfast, took a half hour rest and carried on. Since our team was now lagging behind, the other team went on ahead and will probably hunt the animals they find on the way with the single barrel gun they carried. At about 10 am we heard three shots and we were sure the other team had brought down something. Ahead, we saw two dead capped langurs hung on a tree to be picked up by the team on their way back.

We crossed two large streams and two hills in the next two hours and by about noon we were on the banks of the Angong river. The camp was another four kilometers from here. Petang and Sikung went on ahead and I walked along with Tigbo telling him that he is paying too much attention to his knees and that he should just loosen up his legs a bit. On a big stone along the bank I saw a message written for Tigbo by Petang to drop him at a camp that belonged to the Nyishis who were extracting cane from the area where he can spend the night and walk up till the road the next morning and get to Bomdo by road, 15 km away. But Tigbo would not give up and would also not give his huge bag to any of us.

Two hours later, we finally reached the Sipu camp, few hours late, yet not all was lost. We quickly went back into the adjoining forest to check our traps and our luck with that was not that great too. All the traps were empty and untouched. We returned to the camp and did some angling in the Angong river hoping to get something interesting to eat for the night. Petang got lucky with a single medium-sized fish and with the dried meat that Tigbo brought along, at least two meals were assured. At about 4.30 pm, me and Sikung went back to the forest with our single barrel guns since we knew where the macaques roost. Me and Sikung hid in different positions waiting for the macaques to get to their roost site, it was very likely that one of us would get our shot right. While my eyes were focused on the largest male of the group, I saw the second largest male walking towards me and since I was downwind and still, he did not notice me. I took a shot and down he went. So finally we had a kill. We carried him back to the camp and finally we would have some meat for the Aran festival. That night we had a good sleep; we owe it to the 10 hour trek. A drink of rice wine, a sumptuous meal and a discussion over warm fire were our lullabies. Tigbo was fervently apologising for lagging us in return for our praises for his will power and endurance, for only a handful men had visited this camp.

The beautiful Lady's slipper orchid, Paphipedilum sp.

Morning began early and after a meal of rice and boiled mithun meat, we headed back. Our plan was not to return to the village but to a hunters’ camp mid-way since Sikung was having a bad episode of diarrhea and had therefore become quite weak. We were also carrying quite a heavy baggage back to the village since we had emptied our camp. We reached the Imbung camp, which Tigbo thought was even more prettier and cosy. While me and Petang brought back firewood from the forest closeby, the two patients in our team; Tigbo and Sikung were in charge of cooking the evening meal! After the meal we had long conversations about the hunting trips we made the last three months, and in a way I felt that I will miss the makeshift camp we had lived in for several starry nights.

The next morning we left from the Imbung camp at about 5 am and on the way we collected more than quite a few tubers of Minong(black ginger) which is of high medicinal value. On the way back I also showed Tigbo old shifting cultivation fields, located at least five hours walk from the village, these have been abandoned now since they are located too far from the village. I also showed Tigbo Taba, a tree fern, the bark of which was fed upon by the Adis in the days when food was scarce. Tigbo also took a picture of what he called a lady’s slipper orchid, we had a nice laugh about funny common names in English at Yabo Roglé on the way back.

We reached Bomdo by noon and my log ends here. Next year I plan to visit a much farther hunting camp, in a place called Arbo right below the Mouling peak, I think less than ten people from the village have ever been there. Its a two day trek from the village and I do wonder if Tigbo will join me, for, following us will be hard on his knees!

Footnotes

1. Few more details about the village can be found at http://www.anetherworld.blogspot.com/

2. Aran festival is one of the most important festivals of the Adi community. The website http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/living-with-the-adi-preparing-for-the-aran-festival/8921.html has a video about the festival in Jorsing village in Arunachal Pradesh.

3. Yabo Roglé is also mentioned in another post on this blog: http://conservation.in/blog/a-park-too-far/

4. There were at least eight such hunting parties that made seven to eight visits to their camps during the winter. Hunting as labour-intensive as this and as far from the village is undertaken only for four months a year and the rest of the year, the hunting is limited to the village near abouts. Also, relatively large tracts of forest including the Mouling National Park (http://arunachalforests.gov.in/Mouling%20National%20Park.html) surround the Bomdo village, which may mitigate the effects of hunting the locals may have on wildlife.