The return of the rhino

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The Jaldapara sanctuary,with its tall elephant grass,is spread across 216.43 sq km in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. The park was established in 1941 to protect the one-horned rhinoceros and today,has the largest rhino population in India after Kaziranga National Park in Assam (which incidentally is battling poaching). But the one-horned armoured toughie didn’t always roam free in Jaldapara.

According to the 2012 annual report of the state Forest Department,75 rhinos were reported and recorded in Jaldapara sanctuary in 1969. However,over the next two decades,the number of rhinos dropped drastically,till it reached 14 in 1986. Senior forest officers in Kolkata admit the actual numbers might have been even lower—about eight to 10.

But the dire situation in the eighties worked as a trigger for a group of senior forest officers in Kolkata and Jaldapara to devise a survival strategy to save the rhino. The experiment worked and over the years,the rhino population went up. The Jaldapara experiment is now one of the finest success stories in wildlife conservation. In May 2012,the sanctuary was declared a national park.

A rhino census conducted in Jaldapara in February shows a phenomenal growth in the rhino population. The census report,which is yet to be published,reveals that the Jaldapara park has at least 186 rhinos—62 males,55 females,23 sub-adults,42 cubs and four rhinos whose sex could not be determined. Forest officers say the actual number might have crossed 190,up from 149 rhinos reported in the 2011 census. For the census,the sanctuary was divided into 39 blocks and around 300 forest staff rode on 40 elephants to conduct the census over two days—February 24 and 25. To minimise counting errors,all groups were given GPS devices to inform groups in nearby blocks about every rhino they spotted. “Every rhino has a unique feature that a trained staff can recognise. We marked individual rhinos on satellite maps and tracked their movements in the park. We repeated the count the second day and got the same result,” says Santosha G R,assistant wildlife warden of Jaldapara National Park.

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The Jaldapara sanctuary is surrounded by 25 fringe villages which used to be the den of poachers. In Khanchatpara and Khariapara,most of the villagers were involved in poaching.

As part of the turnaround strategy,forest officers decided to implement a ‘joint forestry management model’,which involved roping in villagers in the conservation process. Manoj Nandy was in 1991 conservator of forest and was among the senior forest officials who rolled up their sleeves and got down to work on getting the rhinos back to Jaldapara. “We held a series of meetings to chalk out an action plan. We first had to identify the poachers and the affected villages. We got poachers arrested and convicted. We also strengthened the patrolling system. The most important part of the programme was to rehabilitate villagers involved in poaching and get them to be protectors,” says Nandy. Surveys were conducted in these villages and the residents,many of whom made a living out of poaching,were inducted into the forest service and given jobs to protect the forest.

Rhinos are killed mainly for their horns,a lucrative trade that fetches lakhs of rupees in the market. The horn of an adult rhino usually weighs between 800 grammes and 1,500 grammes and rhino hunters make about Rs 6,000 to 10,000 a month. The rhino has been given the status of ‘endangered species’,which means a poacher can be jailed for at least seven years if convicted under the Wildlife Act.

At Khariapara village on the fringes of the park,Binod Soren,40,is cutting wooden planks,with swirls of sawdust around him. He is a carpenter,but only a decade ago,he led a completely different life. He was a hunter and had been arrested for poaching. At sundown,he would sneak into the forest with his bow and quiver of arrows and spend all night on treetops,looking for a good hunt. “That was was the only work I knew. I used to hunt any animal that fetched me money. The forest guards caught me after I killed a deer.” He was arrested in 1999,but was granted bail after three months. “In the ’70s and ’80s,the Forest Department was not strict. But now they are coming down heavily on poachers. I am an informer now and I work as a carpenter. The department has dropped the case against me,” he says.

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The department used a twin-pronged strategy to tackle poaching—while it rehabilitated villagers,it cracked down on organised poacher gangs. The strategy proved effective and from 1989,the rhino population began stabilising. “We arrested hundreds of poachers under the Wildlife Act and they were convicted too. The poachers supplied guns to the villagers. But in the last 10 to 12 years,we have been able to convince the villagers to return to the mainstream. Now they work as our informers,” says S B Mondal,Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in West Bengal.

In 1996,the department formed informer groups called ‘eco-development committees’ (EDC) in the fringe villages. Kalyan Das,West Bengal Conservator of Forests (HQ),says,“We realised that tribal groups,including Rabhas,Mejias and Rajbanshis,and local villagers were involved in poaching as it was often their only source of income. We arranged alternative jobs for them. Landless tribal families were identified and were given land. We distributed vans to them and built roads with access to the nearest markets so that they could sell their farm produce. We distributed handlooms and constructed poultry and piggeries in the villages.”

Each EDC has 11 members,led by the beat officer. “There are 33 registered EDCs and 25 registered forest protection committees. Besides benefits from the government,25 per cent of the annual income from the national park is paid to the committee members as incentives,” says Mondal.

Sagar Brahmin,32,works as a forest guide and earns Rs 200 a day. “My grandfather and father used to be poachers. But I want a decent life and I joined the EDC at east Madarihat village,” says Brahmin.

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Dilip Kumar Das is the beat officer for Siltorsa,the remotest of the 26 beats and four zones that the national park has been divided into. In this beat inside the core forest area,Das stays with nine other forest staff and their families—a commune of sorts inside the heart of rhino territory. The beat office is ringed by electric fencing. “In the evening,all the animals surround the beat office. So the children of our staff are always confined inside the fencing. The older children who go to school can’t live here. The staff is allowed to go out of the forest only once in a week to buy their ration. We do not have electricity here,so we use solar panel for power,” says Das.

The Forest Department has set up four anti-poaching camps and 15 watch towers inside the forest. “The anti-poaching camps have been set up for patrolling. The forest guards who stay in the camps have been given arms and ammunition,” says Santosha,the park’s assistant wildlife warden.

Now that poaching has been brought under control—the last incident was reported in 2009-2010—the department is working hard to make Jaldapara a good rhino habitat. “We trim the elephant grass inside the forest to make the rhinos comfortable. Also,there is a process called girdling which we use to cut big trees to make the area habitable for rhinos. We have also created small ponds and marshy lands for the rhinos,” says Santosha. The department has also set up a veterinary unit and a laboratory for rhinos.

At the Siltorsa anti-poaching camp,55-year-old guard Budhua Oraon is preparing to leave for patrolling duty. He has lived in the forest all his life and knows the ways of the jungle—and the poachers—only too well.

“The poachers would enter the forest from the villages,crossing the river on foot. They would track a rhino for several days before killing it. Rhinos mark their territory by defecating at certain places and come back to the same place to defecate. So poachers look for rhino dung,wait there for the rhino to return and kill it. Now that the poachers have gone,the jungle is a safer place,” says Oraon. The jungle doesn’t ever threaten him,though he once broke his leg when a captive elephant attacked him. “I could not stand for several months. My family wanted me to leave this job. But I feel more secure inside the forest than outside.”

The illegal market

According to forest officials,a kilogram of rhino horn sells for

Rs 9 to 10 lakh in the international market. The weight of an adult rhino’s horn ranges 800-1,500 grammes. The horn is said to have a big market in China,where it is promoted as a remedy for everything from hangovers to cancer. “The horn of rhino is actually its hair which transforms into the horn. It cannot have medicinal properties. Researchers have proved it time and again,” says Dr Dipak Ghosh,additional PCCF who has researched rhinos extensively.

The forests of Jaldapara

The Jaldapara wildlife sanctuary was established in 1941 to protect the Indian one-horned rhinoceros. In May 2012,it was declared a national park. The one-horned rhinoceros is the main attraction at the park. Other animals include leopards,elephants,sambar,barking deer,spotted deer,hog deer,wild pig and bison. River Torsa flows through the forest. The sanctuary was an annual winter retreat for former chief minister Jyoti Basu,who used to spend a week at the Hollong forest bungalow every year.