Hoolock gibbon in Mizoram and Saiha.

Samrakshan's efforts in Saiha district on conservation education and awareness focuss on India's only ape - the Hoolock gibbon (hahuk or veitu).

In this post we share some of the records of the primate (pertaining to Mizoram and Saiha) that we have been able to collate.

Rev. R A Lorrain, 1907.

The Gibbon Ape is seen swinging from branch to branch, calling out with its weird, hollow sound. These Gibbon Apes have no tails, and are the nearest approach to human beings that I have ever seen. One thing I have noticed about Gibbon Apes, which does not appear to be mentioned in natural history, is that the female is nearly always grey whilst the males are dark, and it is quite a picture to see these noble animals caring for their young; and there is no nicer pet that one can wish for than a young Gibbon Ape, which will soon learn to care for one and throw its arms around your neck as if it were a child.

The trees were swarmed with long-tailed monkeys and Gibbon Apes, the latter making no end of noise as the boats approached.

The cries of the Gibbon Apes were on every hand, and the experience was indeed a pleasant one to those on an adventurous mind.

A K Gupta and Narayan Sharma, 2005.

Remoteness of the region coupled with absence of Protected Areas has ensured minimal research on these Hoolock gibbons occurring in Mizoram.

A total of 72 gibbon groups were identified from 7 different populations in Mizoram covering an area of about 298sq kms in all the districts of Mizoram. The survey local included all the existing and proposed Protected Areas and Reserved Forests. Out of the 72 groups recorded in the study, as many as 37 groups (51.4%) were outside the boundary of either Protected Areas of Reserved Forests.

Most Hoolock gibbon groups in Mizoram are found in degraded and abandoned jhum areas of village forests. Most of the forested areas are under the control of the communities. This peculiar situation and the fact that most of the Hoolock gibbon groups and for that matter other wildlife species too are not under the direct control of the forest authorities, do call for great efforts to make the participatory conservation approach more effective. The importance of conservation education to this effect will be immense and has to be adopted with focused approach keeping in mind the target communities.

A. U. Choudhury, 2006.

Hoolock gibbons occur in all the districts, namely: Aizawl, Champhai, Kolasib, Lawngtlai, Lunglei, Mamit, Saiha, and Serchhip. The main populations, however, survive in Champhai, Lawngtlai, Lunglei, Mamit, and Saiha districts. Some of the best rainforest of northeast India is found in southern Mizoram, covering parts of the districts of Lawngtlai and Saiha and has relatively good gibbon populations. There are sizeable populations in southern Saiha and Lawngtlai districts.

Sources -

Choudhury A. U. (2006). The distribution and status of Hoolock Gibbon, Hoolock Hoolock in Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland in north east India. Primate Conservation 2006 (20): 79–87

Gupta A. K. and Narayan Sharma. (2005). Conservation status of Hoolock Gibbon in Mizoram. (in). Conservation of Hoolock Gibbon (Bunopithecus hoolock) in northeast India. ENVIS Bulletin: Wildlife and Protected Areas, Vol. 8. No. 1, pp 27 – 86.

Reginald Lorrain (1912) 5 Years in Unknown Jungles, Lakher Pioneer Mission. London, 264 pages.

We thank Christy Williams for the photograph (its from Assam though)!

My first hike in Saiha

This post talks of one of the more invigorating weeks of my life during my initial days in this amazing land, one full year and few weeks ago!

I had recently moved on to Saiha in Mizoram to be a part of a team that would set up Samrakshan’s third field base in this southern most district of north east India. It had been a month of initial activities ranging from purchasing stationary to meeting the executive members of the Mara Autonomous District Council and now I had to move to the field (somehow I still am uncomfortable using the term!). So we set off, me and my colleague, for about a week.

We moved to Tuipang on a Saturday and on reaching met the Block Development Officer; primarily to seek sanction to put up the night in the state guest house. Wondering if I would meet him on a drizzling Saturday evening I was surprised to see the entire staff working on a holiday. Electricity then used to visit Tuipang only during weekends! The Block Development Officer then wished us for the journey saying that people in the region were very cooperative but not the weather as it currently stood. At the guest house, later that evening, I wondered what people’s perception to opposition to dams and other development activities in the region by people staying in urban India would be if this was state at the block headquarters. The hot and wonderful potatoes in the evening meal were cooked by a person who came from Nepal, had worked at Vijaynagar in Arunachal Pradesh and very proudly talked of a Nepali ghetto within the district.

We moved on early next morning. A three hour walk which seemed much longer brought us to Lalveng where seeing me puffing and perspiring a family offered tea. During the chat accompanying tea on knowing our interest in forests they told us of people from Myanmar coming to collect orchids from around their village. Discussion then ventured to work done by World Vision, an international non government organization, in their village undertaking diverse activities like construction of public water points, facilitation of self help groups and distribution of school books. On knowing about us they asked us how our presence would be of benefit to them. Thanking them we moved on further towards Ahmypi with me wondering how to have people actively participate in conservation education and awareness without their getting tangible benefits! Conservation education and awareness was what we were planning to initiate our efforts at Mizoram with.

Walking on, desperately seeking hot tea, we came to the Power House. This is a dam on Tuipang river that generates power in middle of this Eden. The power is initially transmitted to neighbouring district of Lawngtlai from where it is distributed to Saiha besides Lawngtlai. In case of emergency it also lights up the state capital, Aizwal. Having steaming tea with the people present there made me feel a proud Indian. Here I was, a Gujarati with a Mara colleague having tea made by a Mizo in the house of a Jharkhandi while the company that made the Power House and this tea providing house was from Orissa. In course of the tea powered chat they told us of having seen deers and bears around the Power House especially in the season that the amla trees bear fruits. Talk on bears reminded me that we had to reach Ahmypi before sunset and we resumed our walk. Wandering again on environment education my thoughts dwelled on the possibility of linking protection of the forests around of Tuipang river to the people that they get electricity! Then staring at the amazing shades of green surrounding me I smiled at my own thought and moved on. Finally when we reached Ahmypi I was so exhausted I could not have run even if I was chased by a bear. An hour or more later over an amazing curry of fresh pumpkin leaves we discussed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act - the daily wage rate offered, trainings the people concerned received, people’s interactions with the Block Development Office that administered the Act and the work done with the local village committee.

Next day I was awaken by the chill and drumming of rain on the roof. The rains tired off, roof retreated to a sloppy silence and we put on our bags to move towards Khopai. We came across parakeets, jungle fowls, forktails and leeches! The team spirit the leeches demonstrated in sucking my blood reminded me of the wild dogs attacking a deer in cohesion in one of Sekhar’s films. After the blood, the bath. It was an experience, a tired body letting itself go into the chill Tipa river to the most beautiful of surroundings, making one sing aloud. Reaching Khopai putting our bags we went for a walk around the village. After being impressed with the dustbins in positive blue lining the road that went around the village in a U we sat down to talking with people.

We started conversing about Hoolock gibbons with a group of elderly men. According to them while Hoolock gibbons had decreased significantly in numbers people still used to hunt them! One of them added that they used to be easy to hunt as their call is very loud and during specific times of the day. Also they stick to specific areas and have single mates. If a hunter shoots an adult Hoolock gibbon then the mate calls out in agony and follows suit. I remembered reading Kashmira’s article the week before – their loud calls, their being monogamous and territorial – all now being put across in a fashion that to me was unconventional. His friend listed the manner in which the lesser ape then used to be utilized - when it occured in abundance. The arm of a dead Hoolock gibbon was used to lessen agony of women during child birth by placing it over her abdomen and that its blood was considered good for curing ailments like blood pressure and malaria. The Phayres leaf monkey too was regularly put to use in those days! Its brain was given to a child having abnormal growth while its blood was good for curing tuberculosis. Just when I was feeling that I had had my awareness lessons for the day one of them asked if he could catch these animals and help them produce babies. I smiled initially, my mouth full of beetelnut, but when I realized he was talking about captive breeding and to what end I gulped the beetelnut down and with starry eyes asked for water!

We stayed over at Khopai as we were invited to the annual celebrations of the local youth club. The function began with a prayer and a beautiful folk dance by youth attired in traditional clothes which was followed by a series of speeches. By the time the third speech ended I had an idea of when to smile and clap. Then came the games. There was a relay race where students raced teachers, young girls pulled over the rope in tug of war with elder men, few boys unsuccessfully tried climbing the pole dripping with oil and the final two participants at musical chair went on and on for long. I simultaneously flew back in time to those wonder years with friends when life was simple, beautiful and fun. In the evening we met the village council president who had just returned from a meeting in the neighbouring village. This was for protecting the forests alongside the Tuipang and Tuisi rivers and attended by representatives from select villages and forest departments from Indian and Myanmar sides. A meeting on similar lines had also been organized during the previous year.

Next day we left for Vahai reaching in around six hours. Enroute we stopped to see a group of Orange bellied himalayan squirrels rushing up and down a huge tree. In my three years in South Garo Hills in Meghalaya I could not recall coming across such huge trees in community owned lands. Also while silently sitting and watching the squirrels I felt glad that we did not carry the camera, binoculars and GPS with us then for rather than admiring nature we would have been fiddling with the blessed equipments. At Vahai we stayed with an accomplished hunter, as the 17 trophies on the walls of his house suggested. Memories of the survey we had undertaken earlier at Meghalaya flashed in my mind and I asked him to tell us of the species in the forests nearby that he believed had increased and decreased the most in numbers. He told me that earlier he was aware of only three animals being protected by law, meaning those he could not hunt; Asian elephant, One horned rhino and Royal bengal tiger but of late through interactions with various people he got to know of the list being pretty long.

The next day we walked down the slope to Phura. While Vahai and Khopai are eighty five to hundred years old Phura is young at twenty five. A pilot project on rice cultivation was initiated and people from surrounding villages slowly moved around to settle at Phura. I moved around the place and my meager knowledge on rice cultivation did not prevent me from supping few cups of tea at the Phura market where I ended up soaking the ambience for a couple of hours. Byline of the movie Matrix fits Phura market place to the T. Unfortunately it cannot be explained one has to experience it.

After a good long sleep at the forest rest house we set out for Palak lake on the following day. Palak is Mizoram’s largest lake and recognized as an Important Bird Area. I had seen pictures of the lake but being there on the spot left me mesmerized. This same feeling I had when I first saw the Nandadevi peak in Uttrakhand and the Balpakram gorge in Meghalaya. Walking around I saw a Great hornbill and dung of the only elephant in the landscape. There used to be five till some years back intruding in crop fields and demolishing toilets. Crop fields, of the permanent nature, are about two decades old and toilets one decade while Asian elephants who have been here for ages are considered intruders! This may be another vanishing population of the mega species! Sitting down to have a meal at the hut constructed near the lake by the fisheries department some years ago I wandered if some places should just be left alone, left as they are, bereft of conservation and livelihood projects. Majority of these projects are unfortunately ill conceived or cannot match the complicity that nature offers. Back at the forest rest house I was told that government officers come over to hunt birds at Palak. I wondered if we will have to begin our efforts with them!

The next day we walk to Maisa from where we took a pick up for Saiha. The first 40 kms taking 8 hours. After reaching Saiha finally when I talked to my colleague waiting at the office I realized these days will stay with me for long.

Thanking all the people for wonderful stays in their villages with mustard curry and the energy infusing cups of tea!

The lines above document our interactions with people during our trip and not the stand of the organization.

Garo Hills (Meghalaya) - Self Help Groups

This post neither concerns Mizoram nor Conservation Education but focuses on Samrakshan's efforts towards fostering institutions that would play a pivotal role in Community Based Conservation action in the wildlife rich 'community owned' lands on the periphery of the Balpakram National Park. The experience is during my association with our Meghalaya Field Base in Baghmara.

Garo Hills stands out as a lonesome corner of Meghalaya tucked away between Assam and Bangladesh. 3 districts of East Garo Hills, West Garo Hills and South Garo Hills and Bangladesh comprise the Garo Hills Commissionarate. Baghmara, the district headquarters of South Garo Hills is located at the point where the low lying Indian hills melt into the fertile Bangladeshi plains. Self Help Group (SHG) is a form of independent community based and owned institution. Self Help Groups have evolved over the past three decades to today being a window for developmental action by a varied spectrum of government and non government agencies. They are regarded by many as the most effective tool for delivering livelihood as also natural resource conservation goals.

The lines below talk about learning during my association with the Garos in villages of South Garo Hills. The initial months were not quite easy as local people were not habituated to non government organization from outside the region (luckily!!) and we came with the national capital tag. Also was angst, more so amongst state authorities against people from mainland India conducting research and not bothering to even share the outcomes. As months passed the initial jittery attitude gave way to warmth and cooperation.

I was closely associated with our efforts with SHGs. Towards this we went through available books and articles, interacted with people working on the issue as also attended capacity building sessions on the subject. This however was just the beginning.

The Self Help Group Size. Most of the reading material pertaining to Self Help Groups stipulates the size of ten to fifteen members. This however was not the case in South Garo Hills. The average village size we came across was thirty to forty households spread over three to four square kilometers in an undulating terrain. It was difficult to get people together regularly and we after some deliberations initiated working with Self Help Groups having less than ten – including in a couple of cases with five members. The Self Help Groups did function efficiently but we ran into problems when they were to be a part of the banking system as the bank documents mention a minimum of ten members. The initial hiccups were overcome after deliberations with bank personnel that stretched on for longish hours fuelled by cups of sweet local tea. These were sorted out and we have traveled further up the road since - with the bank.

Female Self Help Groups. Available material and prevalent norms suggest Self Help Groups consisting solely of female members to be significantly stronger than Self Help Groups consisting of only males or of both male and female members. We, however, taking into consideration the matrilineal Garo society and the prevalent sexual equality went ahead with helping foster the loose groups of people (including male groups and groups having both male and female members) who approached us to robust self help groups. During the period though more groups having males have broken down than have flourished; we have been able to espouse a male inclusive Self Help Group programme.

Books. Literature and norms suggest maintenance of a set of eight to ten books for each Self Help Group. We were very slow with the books in the initial stages and on trying to understand as the reason behind the same I realized that our team itself was not highly comfortable with the idea of regularly recording financial dealings. After deliberations within and beyond the team the number of books was brought down to five and even these were introduced in a staggered manner complimented by capacity building sessions. We realize now that this is not sufficient and we need to work with the Self Help Groups to introduce furthers books that meet their needs as of today; these are far more complicated. However we expect that with the synergies from our and Self Help Group learning over the period we will be able to devise a method to overcome this lacunae.
Equality – Social and Economic. Books available hint towards facilitating separate Self Help Groups for people in different economic strata within the same village. On account of my high levels of ignorance pertaining to social issues and local language in the initial stages of my stay in South Garo Hills we had fostered Self Help Groups which did not met the criteria. I did not try to make any amends and also since have kept these criteria at abeyance as the excellent functioning of these Self Help Groups made me aware of the inherent equality within the society. If two people from different strata are working together and enjoying the process why should I “an outsider” interfere. While we may not have been able to work with the poorest of the poor we have restrained from applying our value judgments learning in turn from the Garo society.

We have since also made recommendations to the office of the State commissioner for Self Help Groups to take into consideration peculiarities of the region, look upon them as strengths and learn from them in lieu of the current approach of trying to paint the whole country with the same brush.

These learning from our association with Garo people are an ongoing process and the beginning has indeed been rewarding.

Acknowledging the invaluable support of all my colleagues in the jourey with SHGs May 2004 onwards.

Each of the images are of Panda village of South Garo Hills, taken during April 2007 by Pankaj Sekhsaria. Thanks Pankaj.

For sharing agreements and disagreements please write to Nimesh at nimesh.ved@gmail.com or contact Meghalaya Field Base at 03639 222187

Interactions on Participation, Communications and Participatory Communications.

I had transversed across my country without being familiar with either the participants or the organizers to be a part of a workshop focusing on participatory communications during September 2008. However two aspects were clear in the first session and these made me realize the usefulness of my decision ~
· This was not going to be a “Talk in the air” workshop like some others I have in the recent past been a party to.
· Sheer diversity amongst the participants in respect of age, experience and sector of involvement would make it a fascinating experience. On attempting to draw a parallel to the diversity of the group the nearest I could come to was a railway platform.

The workshop provided me space to reflect on our actions of past four years at our Meghalaya and Mizoram field bases in a different setting and with a novel perspective. When co participants, working on issues ranging from Hiv Aids to Theatre, were sharing their experiences I many a times went back to our initial office in Meghalaya, besides the coconut tree with about two dozen chicken trotting around, wondering what if we had laid the foundation in a different fashion!

I share some moments or aspects that interested or confused me.

We had the task of defining a word and then sharing it of course! It was interesting how each of the 27 of us had a different notion of a single word that we believed was used by us frequently. The sector we were associated with coloured our definitions! We then got to discussing whether it was possible to freeze definitions and if it was, was there a need? Encouraging deliberations and creating space for different opinions is of greater utility than arriving at a uniform definition. Definitions hinge on people, perceptions, context, situations and other variables. Rights ~ we tried to define, in the beginning, in a language friendly to us. I put it as thus “Freedom to undertake actions that bring no harm to any object and living being”.

Entrance to the Environment Education Centre, the venue for the workshop at Talegaon.

We discussed different approaches of change agents ~ Charity approach (giver and receiver), Welfare approach (manager and beneficiary) and Rights approach (duty bearer and rights holder) and different levels of participation in these actions ~ Active participation (self directed, shared), Passive participation (consulted, informed) and Non participation (decoration, tokenism, manipulation). While these boxes and matrices looked impressive on the board they got me thinking on how different programmes within our office espoused dissimilar levels of participation and whether a conscious shift was feasible! Regarding the approach I wondered whether it was possible to have “ideal participation” in course of our programmes without implementing them at the same vigour at our office! As I shared this with co participants I recalled Mr. Fernandez’s working papers that succinctly put forth the issue. We talk of equity in dealing with people but do we have it in our office?

Another aspect that had me pondering was how our perceptions shape our communications and thus our endeavors. Two examples brought this out in an impressive manner.
· Many times people, we want to work with or we work with, we refer to as 'target group'.
· Most programmes working with pregnant women refer to them as ‘sick’.
How we communicate to and of people, we work with or desire to work with, shapes our actions as well. Targeted and sick people are subjected to our programmes and not active participants in them. I recalled a discussion I had been a part of, a few years ago, focusing on the impact of how the manner in which she/he was referred to by her/his superior, had on an employee. The word “colleague” stood a world apart from “subordinate”.

During interactions where we
· Discussed facilitation as being separate from manipulation and emergence of facipulation!
· Undertook an activity to bring forth the issue of “push and pull” which we bring in people’s lives!
I realized how pertinent it was to respect and work towards generating synergies from the amazing diversity we are blessed with, on aspects ranging from the colleagues in the office to the natural resources; rather than trying to bring about uniformity and as a corollary strangling life out of them!

The neighbouring environs of the venue that lies between Pune and Lonawala in Maharashtra.

Talking of the individual actions, in course of the workshop, I saw with awe the amazing songs and dance sequences, by co participants, that were undertaken as energy infusers but meant much more. The confidence levels of many of the co participants as they shared incidents of their lives in the course of “interactions on injustice” had me silently admiring their guts. The debates that we had each day as a part of the workshop spilled over during tea breaks and other times. These debates; where we explained our stands, changed them or even stopped participating, brought out for me the need to encourage the practice with the people we work with and before that with colleagues! The spilling over helped me to open up and discuss personal situations with individuals and small groups; this would have been difficult otherwise. During the evening time when we had an option to share our efforts I facilitated an interactive slide show focusing on interactions of people with natural resources in Meghalaya. It was an invigorating experience to discuss, without using text, ~ fishing, shifting cultivation, jack fruits, carnivorous plants with co participants hailing from different parts of our country.

Throughout we discussed tools used in communication by organizations working in different sectors. These ranged from wall paintings to story telling; however Community Based Theatre where a group is acquainted with skill sets pertaining to theatre and it then decides the issues it wants to address by way of these skills and Collage where clippings are used from magazines and newspapers to communicate sans writing interested me the most. We then discussed how participatory communication talks of handing over decisions on tools to be used for communication to people we desire to work with. It depends on the level of involvement we desire people to have. The notion is to encourage these people to be producers of ideas rather than producing ideas at our end and them being the end consumers!


Thanks Marinha for the sharing pictures and editing the draft.


For discussions and criticisms ~ nimesh.ved@gmail.com

Visit to Guwahati Zoo

I visited the Guwahati (Assam) zoo recently. This was primarily to observe species that I dont get to see (easily!) in the amazing rain forests here. This would then help me talk about them in course of our regular communications focussing on wildlife with people.

While moving from one enclosure to another I felt as if the occupants were asking questions (amongst themselves of course!).

Sharing some of them ~

why do they first put him inside and then feed him, while we starve outside !

why dont you wake up and see the interesting specimen (from the very species that brought us here) that has today come to see us ?

why do they first wear glasses over their eyes and then have that circular glass within a metal frame to look at us and that too with one eye !

why is this bed hard and hot !

For details email Nimesh.ved@gmail.com or mobile 91 94361 56458.