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Rhino Killings: The Inside Story
A former poacher in Kaziranga reveals why the animal is being
increasingly hunted
TERESA REHMAN
Kaziranga, Assam
UB Photos
A RARE SUCCESS story in Indiaâs wildlife conservation
record, Assamâs Kaziranga National Park, home to the
one-horned Asiatic Rhinoceros and a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
is struggling to come to grips with a spurt in rhino killings. Twenty
rhinos were poached last year, 14 of them inside the national park and
the rest in areas just outside the sanctuary. The forest department has
come up with the usual excuses of being understaffed and under-equipped,
but the retrenchment of casual workers in the park by the previous
Prafulla Kumar Mahanta regime, leaving scores without
livelihood and angry at the government apathy, has also played
its damaging part.
One of those dismissed workers was Golap Patgiri. Employed
informally by the forest department since 10 years,
Patgiriâs monthly earnings of Rs 1,500 suddenly ran dry.
âWe used to do everything, from patrolling to cutting grass. We
assisted the permanent staff in almost everything. I had once
caught a poacher red-handed,â he says. Suddenly jobless,
Patgiri found himself under pressure to join the ranks of the
very people he had once battled: the poachers.
GROWING THREAT
25 RHINOS
Killed in Assam in the past 13 months, 20 in Kaziranga
81 RHINOS
Died of natural causes in the same period
$35,000
The price of a rhino horn in the
international market, mainly in China, where itâs
considered an aphrodisiac
âAll of a sudden we had nothing to do and there was a
family to look after. It was difficult to go back to our
village and begin farming. As it is our village is ravaged by
annual floods and the crops are destroyed by stray rhinos and
buffalos,â rues Patgiri. Despite belonging to one of the
villageâs affluent families, nobody was ready to engage
him even as a daily wage labourer. âPeople used to ask
us instead if we had a job for them,â he says.
On the fringes of the 900-sq km sanctuary is a small hamlet
known as âShikari Gaonâ. Infamous as a breeding
ground of poachers till not long ago, the village is now home
to many surrendered poachers, some of whom work as informers for
the forest department. Patgiri is one such âreformedâ
outlaw, and besides helping forest officials with information,
he works as an activist for a local NGO named âDagrob
�" Eco-tourism and Eco-development Societyâ. The
Wildlife Trust of India has promised to help him set up a shop. Dagrob
means the ârising sunâ and Patgiri and his fellow
villagers are keen to make a new beginning. One of
Dagrobâs main activities is creating awareness against
poaching. Another is a campaign for economic empowerment of women
through building a cottage weaving industry. The NGO North East Social
Trust is assisting Dagrob in this endeavour.
Patgiri has one case of poaching still pending against him, and
he has to face the wrath of forest department officials
whenever a poaching incident takes place. In Dhoba Ati
Beloguri, Patgiriâs native village, his elder brother Holiram
Patgiri, a former CPI-ML activist, joins us. Pointing to his thatched
house, he laughs, âCan you believe it? We are just about 3 km
from Bokakhat town, yet we have no electricity or water supply.
The only saving grace is a primary school with a single teacher
who caters to 115 students.â
How did his village, inhabited by people from the Mishing
tribe, come to acquire the infamous epithet Shikari Gaon?
Holiram says that the government used to grant gun licences to
villagers living close to the forest to protect themselves from
wild animals. The villagers were later asked to surrender the guns
when militancy broke out in the region.
MANY OF the villagers had single and double barrel rifles. In
fact, owning land, elephants, buffalo and a gun were status
symbols in our villages,â Holiram says. âMost of
our men were ace hunters and hunting a pig or a hare was
considered sacred during the festivals. But the rhino was never our
target.â
Holiram says many of the poor villagers were lured into
assisting the poachers who came from Nagaland, Manipur,
Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. âThese poachers came with
sophisticated weapons but could not operate without a guide who
knew the ins and outs of the forest,â he says.
There was a time when 15 such local âpoachersâ
had surrendered and the forest department had promised to pay
them Rs 500 per month. Explains wildlife activist Uttam Saikia,
who is also the honorary wildlife warden of Golaghat district,
âBut gradually the payment stopped and the officers stopped
bothering. There should be proper rehabilitation packages for
the reformed poachers like they have for the surrendered
militants in Assam.â
An angry Holiram says the forest departmentâs claim of
being short-staffed is a lie. âIf they are understaffed,
why did they fire those casual workers? Our boys grew up among
the wild animals in the forest. They can be much better guards.
Most of the present guards are so old they can barely hear or
see,â he says.
Wildlife expert Bibabh Talukdar says community participation is
imperative for dealing with poaching. âThe government
should accord the highest priority to strengthening
intelligence. The illegal wildlife trade in Kaziranga is the second
highest in the country in terms of volume. If for Rs 10,000 the
villagers are helping the poachers the government should pay
them Rs 20,000 to help nab the poachers,â he says.
Talukdar points out that between 1998 and 2006, rhino poaching
in Kaziranga was controlled effectively, with an average loss
of only about 4-8 rhinos per year. Better conservation efforts
during these years had led to an increase in the rhino
population from about 1,550 in 1999 to 1,850 in 2006. But the gains
seem to be fast getting eroded given the spate of killings last year.
WRITERâS E-MAIL
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>From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 5, Dated Feb 09, 2008
