The three-day centenary celebrations of Manas National Park will take place from December 12 to 14 at Bansbari.

Sandeep Banerjee

Centenary celebrations of Manas National Park is being organized by Forest and Tourism department, Government of Assam and the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) administration with support from the local civic bodies. The three-day celebrations will take place from December 12 to 14 at Bansbari, about 155 km from Guwahati.

The celebrations will showcase the unique conservation efforts of various agencies directed towards several of the declarations of Manas as a ‘world heritage site in danger’. According to M. C. Malakar, chief conservator of forest (wildlife), ABSU and BLT members have played a laudable role in conservation of the park by motivating the hard core poachers to give up their trade. From destroyers to protector of forest, a group of ex-poachers today patrol the eastern part of Manas.

The organizers have arranged a meet of ex-poachers and other events like safaris, boating, rafting, elephant ride, archery competition and cultural evenings during the celebrations. Man-elephant relationship will be demonstrated by renowned elephant trainer Hastir Kanya Parbati Barua on the concluding day of the celebrations. “Know Manas, Save Manas and Love Manas’ – is the slogan of the Manas centenary celebration, which in true sense describes the whole spirit.

The official website of Manas National Park was inaugurated by M. C. Malakar. The portal has connected the wonderful National Park to IT buffs and information seekers around the globe. The URL of the website is  www.manasassam.org.

The website contains host of information about topics like history of Manas, gate way of Manas, centennial celebration, grassland management, river ecosystem management tree land management, trained elephant management, threats of woodland invasion, etc along with research paper published on Manas by NGO’s involved.

Manas began its conservation history as a reserve forest and then upgraded to a protected area and a game sanctuary during the British Raj. This area was famous for hunting of carnivores like tiger and angling for Golden Mahsheer, a sporting fish of the hill stream. Scenic grandeur of Manas and the geomorphology, biodiversity gave it a status of world heritage site in the year 1985. In spite of the British tradition hunting in Manas, the tiger has survived in the park due to hard conservation measures in the post-independence period. Project Tiger was initiated by former prime minister the late Indira Gandhi.

Manas is one place where one can see the big five of the Indian jungles — the tiger (the lion is found only at Gir in Gujarat), the elephant, the rhino, the buffalo, and the gaur. The other major predator of the Indian jungles, the leopard, is also quite common at Manas.

Few protected areas can match Manas in its diversity of wildlife, which boasts of the highest number of protected species in India with over 40. Home to as many as 21 of the 41 Schedule I (Indian Wildlife Protection Act 1972) species of mammals, the Manas National Park is the haven of 60 mammals, 42 reptiles (11 families), over 370 birds, seven amphibians (five families), 54 fishes (19 families and nine orders), and over 100 insects. Manas celebrate its 100th year of existence and so does the tiger under most harassing situation.

Dibru-Saikhowa needs image makeover

As the park is open to tourists for the new season, authorities are trying hard to clear the stigma that it is a den of ULFA militants.

North East News Agency

Recent Army operation to flush out ULFA militants from inside the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park had serious fallout apart from almost derailing the peace process — it severely dented the park’s image. As the park is open to tourists for the new season, authorities are trying hard to give the park image makeover, to clear the stigma that it is a den of  ULFA militants.

Dibru-Saikhowa National Park covers an area of about 340 sq km and lies partly in Dibrugarh district and partly in Tinsukia district. Of the seven parts of the park, one part is wet land and the rest is mainly grassland and dense forest. It was declared a National Park only in 1999. Despite being a relatively new tourist spot, Dibru-Saikhowa has been attracting a steady stream of visitors in the last few seasons.

The main attraction of the park is its avian treasures. There are more than 350 varieties of local and migratory birds in the park. Prominent among the many varieties of water as well a grass fowls are white winged brahmisy duck, bar-headed geese, black breasted parrot bill, marsh blabber and various species of kingfishers. The park is a biosphere reserve. Its semi wild horses are also famous and a source of great attraction. Other animals found are leopard, clouded leopard, elephant, Sambar, India wild water buffalo, capped languor, gangetic river dolphins, Indian wild dogs, etc.

But despite its attractions, the controversial Operation Balawan launched by the Army to flush out ULFA militants holed up inside the park, gave it a negative publicity that is totally undesired before the beginning of a new tourist season. Aniruddha Dey, the DFO of the park, who is also the Tinsukia wildlife DFO, admits that the entire episode of the Army operation has hit the tourist catch to the park badly. “We knew that there could be a fall out like this but still we co-operated with the Army openly during the operation as national security comes above every thing,” he said.

Aniruddha Dey is in fact just back from the US. He was the lone representative from Assam in the 13-member Indian delegation which visited US from September 24 to October 16 under the international visitors leadership programme. The team in the course of the trip visited some national parks there and had a series of interactions with their experts on various issues which included park management in the 21st century. He now plans to put to use some of the knowledge gathered during his visit to give a facelift to the Dibru-Saikhowa Park.

Meanwhile, alarmed by the spread of bird flu from East Asian countries to Europe and considering the vulnerability of the region, authorities in North Eastern states have stregthened preventive measures to check possible spread of the avian influenza.

As the vast network of wetlands and rivers of the entire region is a suitable home for winter winged guests and the major flyways for migratory birds, the North-East is comparatively more vulnerable for possible spread of the flu.Moreover, its proximity to South-East Asian countries is a major concern because poultry birds are imported from Myanmar.

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