THE RHYTHM OF THE GRASSLANDSKaziranga was declared as a game sanctuary in 1905. The name was inherited from the Karbi word Kazi and Ronga, meaning boy and girl. Today, it is not only a world heritage site, but has no match in the world.
Hundreds and thousands of visitors from around the globe visit Kaziranga. One of the primary economical resource is tourism, but a major share of the ownership in this economy lies with the people who do not belong to the villages around Kaziranga. This lack of participation and share of the villages around in and around Kaziranga in the economy from tourism in the park makes it vulnerable to several anti-conservation activities routed through these villages, taking opportunity of the poor economic conditions.
However, in the past some good community participation efforts were made by Wild Grass, which inspite of not being in the prime location of Kaziranga as per the present tourism development, have remained the most popular infrastructure among western visitors because of the local community involvement. It should be mentioned here that even in the worst political disturbance in Assam, Wils Grass in Kaziranga managed to attract tourists.
The next effort came around five years back with the endogenous tourism project (ETP), being launched by Government of India, Department of Tourism in collaboration with UNDP. Amongst, the several rural sites, they chose the village of Durgapur, close to the main tourist hub hub of Kaziranga, known as Kohra. The District Collector (DC) of Golaghat and a local NGO, NEST being the implementing agencies. The main reasons for choosing this village was its proximity to Kohra, being next to the National Highway and being a part of the typical assamese society. Most of the first ETP sites were chosen nationally considering its easy connectivity and a comparatively socially well to do community to enable sure success.
Other than tourism, the other economic activities are dependent on the proximity to the National Highway, like easy supply of agriculture produce and locally run enterprises on the road side. Tea also supports the economy of the area, but has reached stagnancy and engages a huge work force who do not belong to the forest villages. The forest dwelling villagers mainly belong to the Karbi and Missing communities.
Quite recently, Help Tourism has been considered as the resource organization for community motivation, product identification and packaging for the rural tourism projects or ETP sites in East and Northeast India. This is completely a voluntary exercise being undertaken by Help Tourism, considering its mission to spread the ‘community tourism movement’. This gave me the opportunity to visit Durgapur in Kaziranga twice officially. The first with Mayura from UNDP and the second is with my colleague, Asit.
Trip reportPresently, the National Highway between Jaklabandha and Bokaghat runs almost through the northern bounderies of the Park. It has been planned for all practical reasons of conservation, that the Prime Minister’s East West four lane expressway will avoid this alignment and connect Jaklabandha and Bokaghat. This means a fall in local economy and increase of human pressures on the Park. The only sustainable tool which should be planned with immediate effect is to consider the area between Jaklabandha and Bokaghat be declared as the ‘ECOTOURISM ZONE’. Bokaghat can then become the tourism hub and the activities may be planned to include natural and cultural heritage. The wildlife experience, tea tourism experience, Karbi experience, Missing experience, Assamese experience and the river experience may be considered for long stay activities. Considering, the need, Help Tourism has already started initiating dialogues at several levels.
There was a time when the riverways were a major means of transport, and the River Brahmaputra was the life line. With all the rivers meeting Brahmaputra, it formed a big network. One such river in the east of Kaziranga is Dhansiri River. Two small villages, one belonging to the Missing community and the other belonging to the Assamese community existed next to each other, at a place where Dhansiri met Brahmaputra. Then there was a big flood, which forced the Assamese village to shift near the highway in 1959, known as Durgapur. The Missing village known as Dhuba Ati continued to remain where it was, on the easternmost boundary of the park next to Agratoli range, getting water logged for more than three months during the monsoon season, along with the park.
DurgapurFor the last five years work has been carrying on in Durgapur in hardware and software development in tourism as per the guidelines from UNDP and Government of India, Department of Tourism. After the last visit, a tourism day package has been finalized to be launched on 27th September, 2008 on the ‘World Tourism Day’. The package will be based on a number of minimum five visiting tourists or their price equivalent. The package price will be around Rs.500.00 per visitor. The time will be between 11am to 2 pm, when the tourists are lacking activities. The details will be as follows-
Welcome at the gate,
The Namghar experience,
The rock theatre show,
Community lunch,
Visit handicraft families and
The farewell.
Dhuba AtiIn addition to the Assamese cultural experience, Dhuba Ati village has been identified for the Missing cultural experience. Help Tourism in collaboration with NEST has identified a local Missing NGO, ‘DAGRAB Ecotourism and Eco-development Society’ to run the tourism activities next to the Agratoli range. The package is yet to be decided as the work over here started only after my first visit and the product has been identified after the second visit. A survey was done during both visits, the first visit was mainly for community meeting & motivation, and the second was field survey & discussion with the Range Officer of the Agratoli range of the park has also been consulted during the second visit. The upcoming tourist lodge near the range office should be considered of being managed by this active Missing youth group in the NGO. The details will be available from the 1st of November, 2008. The activities being under consideration for the upcoming season are as follows
Boat trip to the Dolphin habitat,
Dhuba Ati village trail to explore the local culture and traditions
The Missing community feast.
The Karbi ExperienceIt was quite encouraging to find the Karbi Along Autonomous Council was making the huge tourist village, the infrastructure was under construction. This for certain will be the hub for the Karbi experience, if handled in the right way with the help of the Karbi community.
It is high time, when the state should act to bring about a concrete co-ordination between all the positive developments taking place under the joint effort of the Tourism and Forest Ministries. This action now will help to fill the gap as ecotourism being the tool for sustainable development, mainly during the crisis when the traffic will be diverted to the new express highway.
