Living in harmony

The Garo Hills in Meghalaya is emerging as a fine example of balancing human needs and wildlife conservation

A land of cottony clouds and lashing rain, Garo Hills is one of the wettest regions in the world, with some areas getting more than 11 metres of rainfall a year. No wonder then that this picturesque landscape, peppered with waterfalls and streams, is one of the most biodiverse areas globally. Part of the rich Indo-Myanmar biodiversity hotspot, the sacred groves and forests within it are teeming with diverse species of orchids, medicinal and ornamental plants, bamboo, and more — some of which are endemic to the region and extremely rare.
 
“It is one of the few places where the lady slipper flower is found, which is now getting rare because of the exploitation. You will also see a vast variety of butterflies here, including the birdwing,” says conservation expert MK Ranjitsinh, former director, Wildlife Preservation, who helped draft the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
 

Elephants in Meghalaya

The Garo Green Spine is critical in Northeast India, supporting about a 1,000 elephants connecting two treasure houses of biodiversity — the Nokrek and the Balphakram National Park. However, in the last couple of decades, rampant urban development, unsustainable farming practices and human encroachment have caused significant habitat loss for a number of species — especially for the Indian elephant and the Western Hoolock Gibbon. According to surveys, the elephant population in the area has gone down drastically, as has the population of the Hoolock Gibbons, which is said to have halved in the last 40 years.There are now believed to be as few as 2,600 of them in the forested patches in several of India’s north-eastern states. Also, as wildlife habitats are shrinking, large animals like the elephants are coming into direct conflict with humans on their traditional migration routes.
 

Hoolock Gibbon

It is to address these concerns that the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and the World Land Trust, a UK-based charity whose aim is to save critically threatened habitats worldwide and their wildlife, have been working together in the area to secure a safe passage for elephants, tigers and other threatened species away from humans.
 
“According to Project Elephant, there are five corridors for movement of elephants in the region. We have secured two of these and declared them as village forest reserves,” says Sunil Kyorang, Joint Director and Head (Wild Lands), Wildlife Trust of India. “There are also some areas, which aren’t officially declared corridors, but are used for movement by the Hoolock Gibbon.”
 
This project started in the Garo Hills in 2000, after WTI got a request from the Meghalaya Forest Department. It took the team three to four years to do the ground work and to arrive at the best option: a village forest reserve.
 
The corridor will be managed by a committee of 15 to 20 people, drawn from the local community, led by a headman. “There will be restrictions such as no hunting, no urban development or setting up of villages. The Garo community, with our support, has now taken upon itself to stitch together this landscape by demonstrating the finest example of community-led and community-owned conservation initiatives,” he says.
 

Nokrek deforestation

The Garo Hills project has now become a part of the World Land Trust’s larger initiative, as part of which it has identified 101 corridors across India. These have been prioritised according to the importance of conservation them. Currently, the Trust is helping safeguard three priority corridors — the Siju-Rewak and Rewak-Emangre corridors in Meghalaya and the Tirunelli-Kudrakote in Kerala. It is also in the process of raising funds for the protection of a fourth corridor, Mudahalli, which connects the Western and the Eastern Ghats.
 
Over the years, the corridor project has only been increasing in scope. And now, for the first time in Indian conservation history, an international brand has added its support to such a project.
 
The Body Shop India, as part of its corporate social responsibility initiative, has just announced a bio-bridge project in the region, in partnership with the WTI and the World Land Trust. This adds a new dimension to the corridor project, as it reaches out to a larger group by involving the brand’s consumers.
 
“With every purchase, in stores and online, from September till end of November, we will protect and regenerate one square metre of forest crucial for the survival of elephants and other threatened species,” says Aradhika Mehta, Marketing Head, The Body Shop. The brand has been running bio-bridges programme successfully worldwide since June 2016 and has protected more than 17.2 million square metres of habitat in Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. According to Mehta, in India, the initiative seeks to secure 1.8 million square metres of the forest corridor and protect wildlife in the Garo Hills.
 
Ranjitsinh hails the corridor project as one of the best initiatives conceptualised and implemented by the WTI. According to him, the Garo Hills presented a number of conservation challenges early on. “For instance, there had been some hunting of elephants in the past, though not as relentlessly as in Nagaland. Secondly, the private holdings in the area are much more than the government-owned ones, which results in problems in securing land for conservation,” he says.
 
Forests have also been mercilessly hacked for timber and entire logs are floated down rivers and streams all the way down to Bangladesh. Then there is the slash-and-burn, or the Jhum Cultivation, which debilitates the land. “Weeds have taken over and the forests are gone, resulting in loss of habitat for animals,” says Ranjitsinh. For a long time, people didn’t realise the need to modify existing crop patterns, so that the yield was not destroyed.
 
“Elephants have known patterns of movement. At that time, if you plant banana outside, it’s like showing candy to a child and then saying, you can’t have it,” explains Ranjitsinh. If the elephants remain in one place, they cause damage to crop and forest. It is vital for them to move within the corridor, so that impact on human settlement and agriculture is minimal. “It is important to maintain the ecological integrity of these corridors for the animals as well as for the community. The local tribal sensitivities are also important. There is a need to make ecology sustainable,” he adds.
 
It is, perhaps, in this area that this project stands out — in the fine balance that WTI has tried to maintain between community practices and conservation needs. “The Garos still have ancient conservation practices of keeping sacred forests and not hunting gibbons. We have taken these as the launching pad to further boost conservation,” says Kyorang. “In its core strategy, the Garo project is following the community securement model, wherein community-owned lands are set aside through easements or bilateral benefit-sharing models,” says Mehta. To ensure that communities receive equitable benefit, which is greater than the “cost of lost opportunity” of the lands, WTI has created employment opportunities for the villagers and helped them strengthen their livelihoods. Moreover, there is a sense of belonging to the project as the locals themselves are engaged in the protection of the village reserve forests.
 
 “In Meghalaya, two sets of laws come into play. One is the set of laws, including those pertaining to forests and wildlife, laid out by the Constitution of India. The second set is laid out by the traditional courts or tribal councils, which are also extremely effective. Anyone violating these is disbarred,” says Kyorang. Which is why it is heartening to see that the corridors are protected both by the traditional council and by the various Indian forest and wildlife protection acts. Kyorang feels that the project has another couple of years to go. “Any project, in which the community is involved, tends to be long term. There is a need for hand-holding,” he says. “But when we feel that they can sustain this on their own, we slowly start disengaging with the project. There is still some time to that.”