News from the Field
July 2004
As some of you may be aware, Samrakshan has recently initiated
a new field project in the South Garo Hills district of
Meghalaya. This Integrated Conservation and Development
Project (ICDP) initiative focuses on affecting conservation of
habitats critical for wildlife, particularly the Asian
elephant, through livelihood security of communities that
share the landscape with wildlife. This is in addition to
Samrakshan's ongoing intervention with communities on the
periphery of Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary.
Though our involvement in this region dates back to about 12
months, a full time dedicated team, comprising primarily of
local persons, has been in place for the last 2 months. The
team is based in Baghmara, the headquarters of the South Garo
Hills district, on the international border with Bangladesh.
Setting up of a functional office in an area like Baghmra
presents significant logistical challenges, which our team has been
coping with. The onset of monsoon has further compounded
difficulties. Early days of this initiative are being devoted to intensive
capacity building of the team. The assistance of the North East
Community Resource Management Project (NERCRMP) has been
enlisted for equipping our team with skills in the areas of
community mobilisation and building local people's
institutions. As has been established through the experience
of ICDPs across the world, and more recently through the
experience of the India ecodevelopment Project, local people's
institutions form the cornerstone of
successful ICDPs. Our team has so far visited two clusters of
villages in the West Garo Hills where the NERCRMP is active.
In addition, NERCRMP personnel based in Tura have extensively
briefed Samrakshan team members in various aspects of
community mobilisation.
In addition to assisting with social mobilisation, the
NERCRMP's
considerable expertise with impacting land use is also being
sought. Various models of tempering land use in favour of
wildlife and livelihood security of communities will be
attempted as part of Samrakshan's initiative in the Garo
hills.
The WWF AREAS team based in Tezpur in Asssam and working in
the North bank Landscape has been approached for assistance
with acquainting Samrakshan team members with basics of
elephant ecology and behaviour. The Samrakshan team
accompanied WWF personnel in the field during the first week
of June. Over time we also hope to draw upon their expertise
in dealing with human-elephant conflict.
Further training programmes on a variety of aspects are being
scheduled in the coming months
At the outset, two A'kings (tracts of community lands) have
been selected as part of Samrakshan's work - Alokpang and
Ampangre, are both situated north of the Baghmara Reserve
Forest and constitute the assemblage of community owned lands
sandwiched between the Balphakram National Park and the
Baghmara Reserve Forest. Rapport building activities have been
initiated in two ofthe villages that are located in these A'kings. Night halts
and villagelevel meetings to acquaint the people with Samrakshan's
objectives and to seek their concurrence are also currently
being undertaken.
Incidents such as the recent kidnapping of the DFO of the
Balphakram National Park Division underline the uncertain
security climate in which our team operates. Though the
officer in question was released after a fortnight in
captivity, the situation in the region continues to pose
significant challenges.
We will continue to release periodic updates of our work as it
develops. Please keep in touch with our website (www.samrakshan.org)
for details. We will welcome any questions or
queries that you may have. Please send us an email -
nimesh@samrakshan.org
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