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Anand Gurung
It’s like any other day for the staffers at the Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge deep inside the lush sub-tropical forest of Chitwan National Park: A big wild male elephant ventures close to the front lawns of the lodge that open into the forest in the late afternoon and the guests immediately come out of the dining hall with their cameras to take a closer shot. A herd of spotted deer comes strolling through the grassland and disappears into the dark lushness of the forest beyond it, before anybody could take their pictures. A mother rhino and calf appear and just go out of sight. And on a rare day, one of the lodge’s staff told me, you can see a tiger on the prowl nearby! “
It’s like any other day for the staffers at the Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge deep inside the lush sub-tropical forest of Chitwan National Park: A big wild male elephant ventures close to the front lawns of the lodge that open into the forest in the late afternoon and the guests immediately come out of the dining hall with their cameras to take a closer shot. A herd of spotted deer comes strolling through the grassland and disappears into the dark lushness of the forest beyond it, before anybody could take their pictures. A mother rhino and calf appear and just go out of sight. And on a rare day, one of the lodge’s staff told me, you can see a tiger on the prowl nearby! “
The guests are also excited about the prospect of seeing tigers. But they also know that only the few really lucky ones get a glimpse of the elusive big cats. The two-hour long afternoon jungle safari in the antiquated Land Rover, racing along the 5 ft wide dirt road through tall grasses, bushes and even deeper forest is fascinating. But even more fascinating is stopping in the middle of jungle to look at the varieties of birds including the lustrous male peacock, or to see gaur (wild ox), barking deer and great one-horned rhinos grazing in bushes. But despite being very alert to our surroundings to spot a tiger, all we could see was fresh pug marks made by them on the forest floor.
A rhino that at first shyly and then with a quick dash crossed the dirt track, that we witnessed on our return was the only thrill we had that day.
Our driver didn’t have a very good day himself. In the morning he had encountered a wild elephant while driving through the jungle to pick up guests and nearly got himself in a dangerous chase. Later, a big rhino suddenly charged from the bushes and almost overturned the jeep.
In the evening, we watched a slideshow, on the wide range of flora and fauna found in the national park at Ghol Ghar, in a spacious dining hall with a huge domed roof. And some guests who opted for an elephant safari that afternoon had spotted a tiger in the bushes near the river and were proudly showing us the photos they had taken.
Though we didn’t see any tigers, we listened to interesting stories about the elusive tigers over a sumptuous dinner with Dhan Bahadur Tamang, a former forest guard who now works as a naturalist and guide inside the national park. We also learnt a great deal about the safari and the tiger’s behavior from him: like for instance, tigers usually avoid attacking humans unless they are man eaters.
Yadav Bantawa, the manager of the lodge, also joined us later and talked about how Tiger Tops is not only a world-renowned wildlife safari lodge whose former guests include European royalties, rock & roll star Mick Jagger and Hollywood beauty Cameron Diaz, but is also a pioneer of sustainable tourism in Nepal. He said the lodge is also actively involved in anti-poaching efforts.
Apart from its emphasis on environmentally responsible Ecotourism, Tiger Tops, in association with the UK charity International Trust for Nature Conservation (ITNC), conducts a range of conservation activities including wild life researches.
After dinner, I went to my room in a huge three-storey wooden building overlooking the dark and impenetrable jungle. It was made of dark wood, bamboo and other natural materials. But this one has a charm of its own as it is built around a very huge and ancient tree and resembles a tree house. Sleep comes easy.
Terai Arc Landscape Project and young conservationists
In the morning we took a one and half hour jeep drive through the jungle to reach Sauraha, a tiny village dotted with hotels and resorts and located in the buffer zone to the park.
Here we attended a discussion at the area office of the Terai Arc Landscape Project (TAL), a joint initiative of the government’s conservation agency, WWF Nepal and other stakeholders to find new ways for people and wildlife to coexist in protected areas of Nepal.
We met enthusiastic representatives of local community forests near the park that is not only contributing to sustainable development in the area through economic gains to be had from the well-managed forests (a study showed that on average a Community Forest User’s Group earns USD 4760 annually), but also reducing extreme ecological pressure on the park by giving locals access to sustainable source of firewood (fuel), fodder, wild foods, herbs and building materials.
The locals are also actively involved in wildlife conservation in the area, hence contributing to increase in tourism activities to bring improvement in their living standards. They have formed anti-poaching units that patrol the protected area to stop poaching of tigers, rhinos and other endangered animals.
And among them, Doma Poudel, a mild-mannered girl of 25, is one.
She has been actively involved in rhino conservation for the last eight years. But there’s an interesting irony in her story: Her mother died in a rhino attack while collecting firewood inside the CNP six years ago.
However, the family tragedy still hasn’t deterred her from her passion – to protect rhinos and other wild animals from poaching activities.
We met more young conservationists like her at the Shiva Community Forest in Thakurdwara, in far-western district of Bardiya. The community forest here serves as the functional corridor that connects protected areas, and is essential for the dispersal and survival of wild animals in Bardiya National Park nearby.
Ram Krishna Tharu, the leader of the Community based Anti-Poaching Team, said they started regular patrolling of the forest and adjoining park since last year.
“This used to be a poaching prone area, especially during the insurgency years. But because of our regular patrolling, the poaching activities have stopped to a great extent,” he said, adding proudly that now they don’t hear gunshots in the forest.
According to available data, Bardiya National Park had lost some 65 rhinos during the conflict period, 2003-2006, while CNP lost 14 rhinos during the same time.
But with mobilization of security personnel and locals in the protected areas, poaching and other illegal activities inside the protected areas has gone down remarkably. In 2007 only two rhinos were poached, one in Chitwan National Park and the other in Bardiya National Park.
Shailkram Chaudhary, a member of the anti-poaching unit, said that they go on a group of ten to twenty individuals for patrolling in the night, and on few occasions nab poachers with nets, traps and even guns. He said their anti-poaching unit comprises more than one hundred individuals from five adjoining villages.
The members of the anti-poaching unit are also actively involved in campaigning in local communities for wildlife conservation, and on some occasion play important role to mitigate human-animal conflict when wild animals destroy crops by entering villages and in some instance even injure or kill people.
But poor compensation policy of the government means that wild animals are not only killed for their body parts, but sometimes for revenge also. Local people living around national parks and wildlife reserves use poison for the purpose.
“But we tell villagers that wild animals are entering villages because of increasing human encroachment on their natural habitat. Plus conserving wild animals is also beneficial in the long run as it will not only protect the natural environment for ourselves and for our future generation but will also boost tourism activities in the area and create more jobs,” Chaudhary said.
Unique conservation effort
Before reaching Bardiya National Park, we witnessed a novel kind of conservation activity at the Old Animal’s Shelter and Vulture Conservation Center run by Kalika Community Forest Users’ Group in Lalmatiya of Dang district. Probably the first of its kind in the country (or even South Asia, as claimed by the center’s people), the shelter gives refuge to domestic animals like cows, bulls and buffaloes who are abandoned by their owners after they become old and sick because of years of service. After the natural death of these old animals, the carcass is left for the vultures to finish off, thereby helping conserve the critically endangered scavengers whose number is rapidly dwindling in the country as well as worldwide.
Similarly, a herd of blackbuck was seen at the Blackbuck Conservation Area run by the Bardiya National Park in Bardiya district. But here we found that the government effort to protect this endangered species was hampered by continued human encroachment (by free bonded laborers and illegal squatters) of the 60.5 sq.km. of the conservation area.
Apart from human encroachment, increase in poaching activities, communicable disease from the village livestock, attacks from hyenas and village dogs coupled with poor management of the conservation area has marred the protection initiatives of these extremely vulnerable antelopes.
Over to the grasslands
We also saw the largest herd of swamp deer in the world at the breath-taking grasslands (phantas) of the Suklaphanta Wild Life Reserve.
Located on the southwest edge of Nepal, the reserve previously served as a hunting ground for the royalties. In 1976, an area of 155 sq.km. was turned into a wildlife reserve to protect Nepal’s last remaining herd of swamp deer including other endangered species.
Though we didn’t see wild creepers like Mikania micrantha and other alien weeds strangling the ecosystem of the reserve like in the Chitwan National Park and Bardiya National Park, Jagannath Singh, chief warden of the reserve, said that continued human encroachment and poaching activities continue to pose a major problem in wildlife conservation works here.
He showed us the hide of twenty-one tigers and leopards the reserve officials recently seized from three Nepali people who were trying to smuggle it to the Tibet border.
“The smugglers confessed that they had paid Rs 1,00,000 to the Indian poachers for each tiger and leopard hide. They could have killed the wild cats in the neighboring Dudwa National Park in India (with which Shuklaphanta shares border) or beyond, we never know, but I can tell you they are not from here,” Singh said.
He said that there are currently nine security posts of Nepal Army inside the reserve to check poaching as well illegal trade in wild animal parts. But during insurgency time, there were only two such security posts.
“You can imagine how rampant poaching and other illegal activities have been here during those times,” chief warden Singh said, adding that the political instability in the country has caused setbacks in the wildlife conservation works.
The reserve, through its proximity to both India and China, seemed to be at the forefront of the war on illegal trade in tiger and wild animal parts that has sadly found a booming market in neighboring China, Southeast Asian countries and beyond.
Apart from four species of deer, rhesus monkey, wild boar, jackals and about 350 species of birds, some 5 residents and up to 19 migratory wild elephants also stroll in the Sal tree forests, several large phantasm and the streams, rivers, and magnificient lakes that comprise the habitat of the reserve. A total of 27 Royal Bengal tigers also inhabit the reserve preying mostly on spotted deer and swamp deer, making the reserve one of the highest densities of tigers in the range countries.
But still the tiger eluded us. Will it still keep on burning brightly in the forests of Nepal? Let’s roar at the politicians.
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