Guwahati, Jan 18: A team comprising members of Eco Development Committee (EDC) and forest officials from Daying Ering Wildlife Sanctuary at Pasihat in Arunachal Pradesh were awed at the experience it had visiting community-managed ecotourism and natural resource management model in some of Karbi tribe villages located in Kohora River Basin (KRB close to the famed Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in Assam.
The team’s whose exposure visit was sponsored by Aaranyak (www.aaranyak.org), a premier research-based biodiversity conservation organization, to attend a sensitization workshop on formation of Community Surveillance and Monitoring Teams (CSMTs) in and around D’Ering WL Sanctuary to facilitate community’s role in wildlife crime mitigation.
The CSMTs are being formed near D’Ering Sanctuary under the aegis of Legal and Advocacy Division (LAD) of Aaranyak.
The Arunachal team after attending the sensitization workshop on CSMT formation, was taken to Kohora River Basin (KRB) in Karbi Anglong district near the KNP where Aaranyak under its Natural Resource Management Programme has been promoting indigenous community-driven eco-tourism in the greater interest of biodiversity conservation. The objective was to provide the team idea on how to sustain CSMTs that are being formed around D’Ering WL sanctuary, through ecotourism.
Maksam Tayeng, an EDC mmber, who was part of the visiting team, said, “Being from indigenous Adi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh, the guests were overwhelmed by innovative ways of running a nature trail, food cooked in indigenous style which are easily replicable in Arunachal Pradesh.”
The team from Arunachal Pradesh which also had the DFO of D’Ering WL Sanctuary T Taga, undertook the exposure trip called Journey for Learning (J4L) during January 10-12.
At the beginning, an orientation on ‘Geo-Ecology of Kohora River Basin, People and Culture’ followed by discussions was conducted for the visiting team by Aaranyak’s resource persons based in KRB.
‘Walking in the forest’ was conducted for the guests to allow them to experience the richness of the natural ambience. The trekking exercise through community forests was led by Dr M Firoz Ahmed, senior scientist from Aaranyak and Sanjit Bey, local expert from the community.
A traditional Karbi lunch cooked in bamboo nodes was served to the visitors after the trekking . A small exhibition of products of Pirbi, a community-owned enterprise that sells farm & non-farm produce, was also showcased.
The guests were guided through Phumen Engti village where Laki Beypi, a backstrap loom weaver, demonstrated her weaving process and enlightened the guests on Karbi motifs and their significances .
For evening tea, the guests visited Engle Pathar village where Meena Tokbipi, a local, guided the guests through her homestead tea garden, explaining tea plucking and hand-rolled tea making process and served a handmade tea (Smoked tea) variety to the guests.
An interactive session on ‘Working with forest fringe villages’ was conducted in Chondrosing Rongpi village by Jayanta Kumar Sharma, a senior resource person from Aaranyak. DFO of Kaziranga National Park, Ramesh Kumar Gogoi attended the session and shared his experience and management techniques in the session.