Namdapha National Park & Tiger Reserve

Our main work involves a community-based conservation program with the Lisu tribal community in the 2000 sq km Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve, in Arunachal’s easternmost district of Changlang.

Namdapha with an incredibly wide altitudinal range, supports a diverse flora and fauna that includes about 90 species of mammals, many of which are rare and threatened, and over 400 bird species. Namdapha faces a variety of threats, due to a complex interplay of factors. Hunting, however, is the biggest threat and is prevalent among all tribal groups in the area. Protection only through enforcement has not and will not work in this area because of inaccessibility, lack of protection infrastructure, and motivation.

Our program is currently focusing on working with the Lisu community. Although communities such as the Chakma and occasionally the Miju Mishmi (from adjacent Lohit district) live along the western boundary of the park and enter the western fringes of the park for fuelwood and other resource extraction including hunting, the main community that directly affects the Park and is affected by its presence is the Lisu. While we are slowly starting to work with the other communities, our priority in the first few years is to establish a relationship and win the support of the Lisu community.

Lisus are primarily agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers, and live in an extremely remote corner in four villages beyond the eastern boundary of the Park bordering Myanmar. Their only access, apart from infrequent air sorties is on foot through the Park via an old defunct road (157 km) through difficult terrain even for basic supplies and health facilities. There is limited cultivable land in the villages outside the Park and over the past 8 years, 65 Lisu families have settled inside the Park in four settlements because of loss of existing lands to natural river erosion and in anticipation of future loss.

Lisus have few job or educational opportunities and the tribe is not given any preferential job reservation because of an ambiguity in their status. Although Lisus are enterprising and cultivate fruits and vegetable, they have no way of marketing their produce. In the absence of employment opportunities, a traditional pastime such as hunting becomes a supplemental source of cash, especially given the nearness to the Myanmar border and links to animal trade routes in China.

Our observations suggest that maintenance of the old road going through the park may be necessary, as currently the lack of a road does not hamper hunting activities or the settlements inside the Park, and, instead, prevents effective protection. In the present scenario, wildlife conservation in the area is suffering and Namdapha has a bleak future. Road access would also help Lisus market their produce and have better economic and educational opportunities, thereby reducing resentment and retaliatory hunting. The Lisus are knowledgeable about forests and the difficult terrain of the Park, and this could be used in a positive way for protection and eco-tourism.

Our overall program goals are to reduce/arrest hunting, find solutions to agricultural land availability, find livelihood options and monitor wildlife abundance and recovery. This required as a first step building a relationship, and identifying key people, while communicating our primary goal of wildlife conservation. Second, through discussions, we identified the basic needs of the Lisu community.

We have initiated a range of activities starting with helping Lisus in formal education by setting up 6 schools and appointing educated Lisus as teachers, providing educational material, medical aid and putting in place a community health care system by training Lisu youth. We have chalked out a conservation education program and are producing appropriate educational material. We have also encouraged educated Lisu youth to document wildlife folklore from village elders and produced calendars for the community for two successive years.

As a result of these activities, personal interactions and meetings with the community leaders and villagers, Lisus in three settlements inside and four villages outside the Park have pledged to actively prevent hunting by their community members. We are also training and employing some Lisu ‘hunters’ to monitor wildlife. We are trying to address the bigger issue of the land problem, and highlighting the current situation in Namdapha to decision makers, through a short film about the area and the people. We are also exploring the introduction of livelihood options through horticulture (vanilla, pepper), eco-tourism and handicraft development.

The response from the Lisu community has been encouraging and although we have been able to gain their confidence, trust and goodwill, it is still too early to say whether this would work in the long run. Through this project, we hope to demonstrate that wildlife conservation need not proceed at the expense of local human interests.

Pakke Tiger Reserve

Our focus has largely been in Namdapha in the first year of the project; however we are also working in Pakke Tiger Reserve. Since 2001, the local Nishi tribal community there has become more responsive to wildlife conservation, thanks to the efforts of the Forest Department and other conservation organizations. Many of them, who were active hunters, are now helping to conserve hornbills.

The villagers have formed four village councils to ensure reduction in hunting activities, although currently these councils are almost non-functional because of internal disputes. The conservation commitment shown by the Nishi villagers needs to be sustained through more incentives, income-generation opportunities tied to wildlife conservation in the area (such as through eco-tourism) and conservation education.

We had discussions with some of the Village Council members and other local community leaders. We are trying to encourage their interest by training and employing them to assist in monitoring the ecology of hornbills. Monitoring of hornbill nest sites with an “erstwhile” local hunter started from April 2004. Another local assistant is monitoring hornbill nest and roost sites known from previous research in the area. During this breeding season, we have found 11 new hornbill nests in the area. Hornbill roost sites are being continuously monitored since October 2003. There is now almost 8 years of data from roost site monitoring which started during the prior research on hornbills. This monitoring will help in detecting threats, and changes in hornbill populations. We also distributed the hornbill poster to the community and schools around the reserve and in other Nishi-dominated areas of the district where hunting for hornbills is still prevalent.

Currently, 10 field staff are involved in the project. There are 2 field staff (hornbill monitoring) in Pakke Tiger Reserve and 8 field staff in Namdapha; wildlife monitoring (3), health care (1), education (4) and other field support (1). Other project associates in Mysore were involved with designing and production of educational material and editing a film about the project.

In this program, we are trying to address the main threat to wildlife conservation in Arunachal Pradesh, namely local hunting. We also hope to demonstrate that effective wildlife conservation need not be at the expense of the local communities, but, instead, can be achieved through their co-operation.

Outputs

16 minute film: Namdapha: threatened forests, forgotten people

Educational poster of hornbills of North-east India (5000 copies) for country-wide distribution.

Conservation education outreach: Activities (poster-making, essay-writing) conducted using the hornbill poster with schoolchildren in selected schools in Pune, Ahmedabad and Kolkata by local conservation NGOs and interested individuals and volunteers.

A 56-page Children’s book on hornbills and rainforests.

Calendars for the Lisu community (as part of establishing relationships with the community).

Building up slide library for use in conservation education program.