Scouts help protect Lawachara National Park

Scouts help protect Lawachara National Park
by Faizul Khan Tanim

Mohammad Abu Taleb, 19, member of the Moulvibazar District Boy Scouts, has never breathed the scent of a forest before. ‘Hiking through Lawachara National Park (LNP) is an overwhelming, warm, unsullied, and green experience’, he says. ‘I saw a funny-looking, rare species of monkey that looks like it is wearing goggles. My group and I also had the rare opportunity to see a group of Hillock Gibbons playing in their untamed neighbourhood on top of trees. I saw some other rare birds as well and the heavily scented Lemon Garden — Lebu Bagan,’ said Taleb excitedly. Imagine the trails of such a beautiful national park littered with chips wrappers, cigarette butts or a picnic party blaring Hindi music through loud speakers. The beauty and serenity is virtually destroyed. Even the animals take offence to such intrusion and make their appearances rarer. To help preserve the forest from such harmful intrusion, Taleb and a group of his scout friends have taken up the voluntary task of convincing visitors from affecting the serenity of the forest. Taleb says, asking visitors not to litter and help forest conservation fell on deaf ears, initially. However, the scouts never lost patience and today they have people who welcome their suggestions eagerly, at times, apologising for their ignorance. Nishorgo Support Project (NSP), the Forest Department’s new Protected Area (PA) management program to conserve biodiversity, with financial assistance from USAID, organised a program where scouts participated in the protection and conservation of LNP. The scouts oriented visitors, as part of their task, on nature appreciation in forests - such avoid using loudspeakers or make loud noise, not to enter vehicles in the park area, buy the tickets before entering the park, not to disturb the wildlife, not to litter inside the forest trails etc. The scouts and the community patrollers helped the Forest Department staff control traffic at the national park entry. Since the tourist season lasts from October to next April, the local scouts worked till the last weekend of April. ‘We worked throughout the month except on weekends and each day 12 scouts patrolled the area,’ says Mohammad Abul Kashem, assistant field commissioner of Moulvibazar District Scouts. ‘The scouts asked every visitor not to litter cans and packets, not to waste water, and most importantly, not to disturb the forest’s animal livelihood. And I particularly think that it was the appealing and humble requests from the young scouts which made the visitors listen to them. Quite often, the visitors defy such requests from patrolling guards,’ added Kashem. Other young scout leaders, Suranjit Das Chowdhury and Humayun Rashid of Moulvibazar district scouts and Kendrabindu Mukto Scout Mohaldal of Moulvibazar voiced the same notion. ‘We were too small in numbers to handle such a large number of visitors’ everyday,’ they say. Another Scout Prachurjo Goswami was animated and thrilled to see different species of birds during his voluntary work. ‘This trip was very interesting and I would love to join the next time I am called again.’ Mehrin A Mahbub, communications coordinator of NSP said it aims to collaboratively develop co-management agreements for improvement in forest and resource conservation in selected protected areas like LNP. NSP’s objectives are to develop a functional model for formalised co-management of protected areas, creating alternative income generation opportunities like cattle rearing, weaving and others, for local stakeholders associated with the co-management committee of the protected area. Other objectives include developing policies helpful to improved protected area management and building constituencies to further these goals. Also important is to strengthen the institutional systems and the capacity of the Forest Department and key stakeholders so that improvements in co-management under the project could be made permanent. Building or reinforcing the infrastructure within protected areas that will enable better management and provision of visitor services at co-managed sites and finally, design and implement a program of habitat management and restoration for protected area. ‘Illegal tree felling reduced by eighty per cent after this programme,’ says Mehrin. ‘We set eight types of birds as indicator species, which means, as the visibility of the eight birds’ increases, the conservation of the forest is improving. And so far, two of the bird species, the jungle fowl and puff throated babbler, increased in numbers and can now be seen frequently,’ added Mehrin. ‘And these improvements are complimented by the increasing turnover of visitors in the park. An approximate count tells us that 10,000 visitors came each month from February to April this year. Of this, almost 2,000 visitors thronged the park on weekends.’ Asked whether the gas pipeline running beneath the forest is affecting the environment, Mehrin said the pipeline is placed in such manner that the forest’s biodiversity is not disturbed. However, another NSP official said that if an accident occurs, LNP cannot be saved. Many visitors and nature activists allege that illegal tree felling has not completely stopped. Both NSP and forest department officials say, as LNP is part of a protected area, stealing has almost disappeared inside it because of regular patrol. But the park is a part of the West Bhanugach Reserved Forest and tree felling still continues outside the protected areas. Speaking to a high official from the forest department, requesting anonymity, he said the patrollers, who used to be tree fellers previously are only given a monthly remuneration of Tk 2200 which is insufficient to motivate them to work honestly. ‘Fifty per cent of the total revenue collected from the visitors entrance ticket, brochure and souvenir selling money was supposed to be distributed amongst the patrol guards but dissemination of this money cannot be done as it is still awaiting permission from the finance ministry,’ the forest official added. Asked about the potential value of LNP becoming a tourism spot, the president of the Tour Operators Association (TOA), Hasan Mansur, said that ‘The logistics is still not up to the mark. Capacity building has to be present in order to start something there.’ ‘We have to have some initial infrastructure such as land. If the government comes forward to acquire some land then that would help. And if we cannot start a tourism package which will be equally profitable and beneficial for both us and the tourists, it will be a failure.’ Another nature enthusiast, Ronald Halder, who has been visiting LNP for almost 20 years, said ‘I would like to believe and see that NSP becomes a successful venture as the initiative is really commendable.’

*This article was first published in Daily New Age EXTRA Friday June 22 2007

http://www.newagebd.com/2007/jun/22/jun22/xtra_also3.html