THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Forest Department, with the support of a non-governmental research organisation based in Vazhachal, plans to launch a website which allows the public to upload the sighting of hornbill. The sighting of a hornbill is considered significant as even ‘Nattu Vezhambal’ (Indian Grey Hornbill), a common species at one point of time, has become rare. Apart from sighting, public can also upload any other observation such as the trade or the nesting of hornbill.
Apart from the website, an ecosystem and multi-species monitoring programme, involving tribal communities and forest officials, is also on the anvil. The programme will be modelled after the hornbill monitoring programme being implemented by the same NGO, Western Ghats Hornbill Foundation. The project has received technical sanction and is now awaiting the final go-ahead.
“The proposal was submitted. It needs to be fine-tuned, so that it becomes a larger initiative that can be replicated across the state. Since the programme is implemented through the local community, it will evolve into a sustainable long-term project,” says B S Corrie, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force). The hornbill monitoring programme in Vazhachal area has been fairly successful.
Launched in 2004, people from the tribal community were employed to track hornbill nesting sites.
Since hornbills do not nest in all kinds of trees, ‘tribal guards’ were trained to identify the species where nests were found and conserve them. Invariably, conserving these trees also meant conserving the ecosystem.
The ‘guards’ for each year are chosen by the community itself. The project is supervised by the Forest Department. The strategy of superimposing monitoring and conservation activities on the daily life of the people ensured the project’s success. An indicator is the number of hornbills in Vazhachal, which has doubled in 10 years.
Now, the programme has been replicated for multi-species monitoring and ecosystem conservation in four tribal settlements - Sholayar-Powerhouse, Sholayar-Anakkayam, Malakkappara and Vazhachal. “Instead of monitoring just the hornbill ecosystem, the people in the four settlements have been trained to conserve plants such as Kunthirikkam (Black Dammer) and Kattujathikka (Wild Nutmeg) which are endangered species important in their everyday life and culture,” says K H Amitha Bachan, Director, Western Ghats Hornbill Foundation.
Once the proposal for the new programme receives all necessary sanctions, it can be implemented across the forests in the state.