It was a small village of some 16 ploughs differing in no respect from hundreds of similar villages, scattered throughout the length of the tract along the Bhahar. Originally the village had been surrounded by tree jungle intercepted with grass, and in this virgin jungle lived all the numerous denizens of the wild. To protect their crops the villagers erected thorn fences round their fields. As an additional safeguard a member of the depressed class was encouraged to settle in the village whose duty it was to watch the crops at night and see they were not damaged by stray cattle or wild animals....

Lantana camara, belonging to the Lamiaceae family, also known as “Terror of Kumaon”, is native to tropical regions in Central and South America. After being brought to India as an ornamental garden plant in about 1809 in Culcutta Botanic Garden, the weed quickly escaped cultivation and within 20 years was established in the wild. Lantana was first declared noxious around 1920, and by the 1950s it had spread over more than 1600 km of the eastern Australian coastline. The species will grow to 6 ft (1.8 m) high and may spread to 8 ft (2.4 m) in width with some varieties able to clamber vinelike...

Among the Society for Mahseer Conservancy, a new project was launched few months ago, under the name “WELFARE”, which stands for Women Empowerment through Lantana Furniture, Artefacts and Restoration of the Environment”. The reason for this project emerged after an obvious result from the firewood survey: the villagers will not reduce their wood collection unless some alternatives are provided to them. Unfortunately, the government is almost absent in such help. Our actions may be at small scale, but at least they are actions. The women are the protagonists of this project since they are...

Comon Tiger Corbett Corbett is popularly called the land of roar, trumpet and song – means it is known for tigers, elephants and birds. This is right as it has the highest density of wild tigers in the world with one of the best male female ratio of the Asian elephant (1:3) and an amazing diversity of avifauna with 625+ species of bird. It is rarely understood as a good area for butterflies. Corbett region is a paradise for butterflies and for those who love butterflies. People usually visit Corbett to watch ‘wildlife’ and from most of them understand ‘wildlife’ means tiger, leopard,...

Jilling Our trip to Jilling, near Nainital, was a welcome respite from the August heat. After a short hour’s walk assisted by a guide with a horse carrying our bags, we arrived at the main house, situated just below a long ridge, from which the view of the himalayas- when free from cloud cover- is said to be fantastic. There are other houses on the mountainside, but not many, and the overall feeling is one of a peaceful haven. After the hustle and bustle of the previous days, we were suddenly filled with the desire to just relax- to sit back and read, watch the birds, and take short walks through...

Today we hear of so many species ‘facing extinction’ or ‘wiped out over most of their range’ that we can become slightly de-sensitized and numb to what seems at time to be a grim and inevitable play with us playing the villain. In the last twenty years three species of Indian vulture have gone from being one of the most prolifically abundant raptors to top of the IUCN Critically Endangered list. The reason behind the current Indian Vulture disaster that befell those graceful giants of the sky is the same as for the cause of the declines in so many other species; humans. But is there something...

Women collecting wood In India, a high density of people is dependant on forest products in order to cook, to heat the houses and to feed the cattle. This has been a tradition for decades if not centuries among Indian villagers. Wood is indeed a privileged energy source since it is free of cost and is, for now on, still available. But this wood collection is step by step destroying the ecosystems of the forests. The forest products collected which are bark, dead and green wood and grass all participate in the balance to keep forests in good health. The barks are protecting the trees from any aggression;...

We left Dhikuli village with Sumantha Ghosh, Paramveer Singh Hayer, Oli Gray-Read, Pascale, Eric and Sarah-Eve Longsworth and myself and headed to the mountain areas to reach the village of Devidhura. The village is situated at the trijunction of Almora, Pithoragarh & Nainital districts. A unique feature of the fair is the image of the goddess, kept in a locked brass casket. This casket is taken in a procession to a nearby mountain spring where a blindfolded priest ritually bathes the image and replaces it in the casket.The “goal” of our journey was to go to see the festival of Bagwaal....

A jeep safari is a good way to see the sights One hundred years ago, India’s tigers numbered around 40,000, yet within decades the Royal Bengal Tiger faced extinction. Although hunting was outlawed in 1970, the survival of the species was threatened by continuing loss of habitat and by poaching. Enacting the Wildlife Protection Act in 1972, India’s central government established the first nine tiger reserves, including Corbett and totalling 16,000sq km, across India. Reserves now number 27 and encompass more than twice that initial land area. Project Tiger has doubled India’s tiger population...

We step off the highway into the silent forest, following a foot track down into the valley of the Ramganga. Tiger’s pug or pawprint indicates the age and health of the animal We glimpse a lone sambar deer, more timid than the chital; the canine bark of the barking deer reaches us from a bend ahead. Porcupines and wild boar have dug up the ground in many places. Tiger scat, examined by expert eyes, reveals fur and crushed bones from its last kill: that is as close as I’ll come to a face-to-face encounter with the king of the forests. Tiger hunting has long since ceased, but the ‘king of...