JORHAT, May 25 – Winging their way through highways in the sky, seasonal avian visitors to the numerous wetlands of Jhanjimukh area off Teok often found themselves fall prey to poachers nets. Either trapped, maimed or poisoned, they occasionally ended up in cooking pots till a few years back, until the birds eventually found a reliable protector in ‘Ketekee’. With senior citizens, housewives, full-blooded youth, and even impressionable schoolchildren among its rank and file, “volunteers of Ketekee today constitute an efficient and close-knit intelligence network”, the NGO’s dedicated secretary Ananta Dutta told this newspaper. “Keeping track of indigenous and migratory birds in their respective localities, the volunteers also help to arrange occasional awareness meetings to educate and motivate rural folk residing beside the water bodies on the urgency to preserve the right but fragile ecosystem,” he added.
Launched on January 11, 2001, the NGO was christened Ketekee Environment Conservation Forum by its chief adviser Bipul Bhuyan. Headquartered at Teok, which is 22 kms east of Jorhat city, the Green body is manned by 25 executive and 69 general members. Ananta, who is a qualified, energetic and enlightened local lad, though unemployed, narrated how Smt Shanta Sharma, who serves as honorary wildlife warden for the Government of Assam, mobilised people of the area in 2001 along with journalists Ashok Baruah and Nabajyoti Baruah, besides addressing Ketekee’s first organisational meeting at the No 125 Bhakatgaon LP School near Jhanjimukh.
“It was a red letter day for us, Ananta recalled, “as Smt Sharma’s motivational speech and gentle persuasion pricked the conscience of one-time notorious poachers Duliram Kaman, Jiban Chandra Mahanta and Krishna Pada Kalita. Discarding their guns thereafter, they joined Ketekee post-haste”. Fine-tuned with avian behaviour in the wild, “the troika still guide us on how best to protect our feathered friends” Ananta mentioned.
Dotted with over 20 near-contiguous patches of wetland from Kokilamukh off Jorhat to Bonai in Teok, “we have been consistently moving the State government since February 2002 to declare at least Missamari, Chengamari and Degholi beels as protected areas, but to no avail,” Ananta rued before this scribe. On the contrary,” around 150 bighas near Hatipara, which is another wetland situated in the area, and where we had planned to launch an afforesting drive, has been partly encroached upon in recent times by people with strong political backing”.
“Astounded by the numerical strength and sheer variety of indigenous and migratory birds frequenting the beels in and around Jhanjimukh, project director Jaffarul Islam of the Indian Bird Conservation Network spontaneously bracketed the spot under the “Important Bird Area” category during January last year, while director Asad R Rahmani of the Bombai Natural History Society too was thrilled beyond words”, according to Smt Sharma.
Mobilising experts, opinion-makers and mythologists, including Dr Prasanta Saikia of GU to conduct a census sometime back, volunteers of Ketekee subsequently learnt the basic. “As the conservation effort gained momentum, the bird count too recorded a significant increase. The figures exceeded our wildest expectations last season”, Ananta and CMS field supervisor Sujit Hazarika informed The Assam Tribune.
Recounting their struggles, Ananta hastened to add that the population of purple moor then had far outstripped available resources in the area. Suggesting translocation or systematic culling to maintain a balance, he wondered what the outcome would be otherwise. Confiding that a section of the mostly poor and woefully ill-informed villagers, “initially considered us as a bunch of misguided youth, they even jeered at our attempts to save the birds. But on realising the possible economic gains from eco-tourism they dramatically came to terms with reality.”
“Fed with an occasional dose of Green propaganda, the villagers today hardly bat an eyelid even when their standing paddy crop is periodically destroyed by marauding flocks of purple moor hen”, he added. But admittedly on tenterhooks, Ananta couldn’t help blame himself for the villagers’ predicament, as he sees them silently suffer the fallout of a successful conservational endeavour, and justifiably compared the situation to a ticking time bomb raring to blast the lid. Warranting serous concern, Ananta’s creased forehead exposed his apprehension, as he murmured: “I shudder to think about the collective wrath of the wronged villagers, if and when it explodes in an orgy of uncontrollable rage.”