Conservation Management of Kaziranga National Park - Conservation Management

Conservation Management

Kaziranga started in 1908 as a reserve forest to protect rhinoceros and other wild animals. Thereafter shooting was prohibited and exploitation of forest products was stopped. However limited grazing was permitted till the declaration of the area as a national park. Kaziranga has a long history of management and practices include annual burning of the grasslands by wildlife staff. Kaziranga has a good conservation history, especially due to its efficient management policies.

For protection of the wildlife the legislative status for Kaziranga National Park represents the "maximum protection under Indian conditions” at national, provincial and municipal levels. A list of 12 acts and constitutional safeguards ranging from the Assam Forest Regulation of 1891 to the Biodiversity Conservation Act of 2002 ensure legal protection to the park. A management plan for Kaziranga (2003-04 to 2012-13) has been prepared in which all the objectives, problems, zonations and strategies are clearly defined for greater protection. A Geographical Information System (GIS) based management information system to keep an eye on the soil erosion and soil deposition by river waters is under consideration in the Management Plan.

For controlling poaching many steps have been taken by the park authorities including maintenance of existing and construction of new poaching camps, adequate staffing, providing mobility, patrolling, intelligence gathering, firearms and control over the use of firearms around the park. The park has about 122 anti-poaching camps scattered throughout the Park, including two floating camps on the Brahmaputra river. There are 123 country boats, 6 mechanized boats, 4 speed boats (OBM), 2 motor launches, 20 motor vehicles and 47 departmental elephants to assist the anti-poaching squad. There are some 800 personnel, which include about 200 forest guards, game watchers, home guards, forest protection force, and temporary staff who guard the park round the clock. The foresters are provided with 346 numbers of .315 bore rifles, 33 SBBL, 18 DBBL, five revolvers, 20 fixed and mobile wireless stations and more than a hundred walkie-talkies which helps in the anti-poaching activities and in fighting against the poachers. With effective protection methods the number of poaching cases has declined in the park over the past few years.

During floods and to mitigate its effect on the environment and wildlife effective steps like increasing of patrols, maintenance of existing and acquiring of new speed boats etc., controlling speed on the National Highway 37, construction and maintenance of highlands with the help of Indian Army, removal of water hyacinth and close collaboration with other civil departments are some of the measures taken. Construction of several corridors and other steps including construction of road signage, terrain easements, rumble strips, road awareness campaigns, intensive night patrolling and regulation of vehicular traffic to mitigate the number of death of wild animals by speeding vehicles on NH-37 have been done by the park management.

To prevent illegal grazing and genetic distinctness of the wild buffaloes systematic steps like enforcement of legal measures, motivating the people to rear high yielding varieties of fodder, immunization of the livestock and fencing in the sensitive areas of the park are undertaken regularly by the park management. The park management have around looking after the health and nutritional requirements of the departmental elephants and constructed permanent shelter for them. Maintenance and upkeep of records of all the livestock within a radius of 10 km of the park and regular immunization of the cattle living in the fringe villages to prevent spread of diseases among wild animals. Paying compensation to the villagers for damaged crops and loss of life due to attack of wild animals, formation of crop protection committees, construction of vigilance camps, fencing and eco-development works have been proposed to increase the communication with the villagers and to have a healthy man-animal co-relation.

Extensive research on the reasons for straying and wildlife behaviour, erecting physical barriers, tranquilization, keeping vigil and mobile patrolling especially during the flood and cropping seasons are done by the park management from time to time.

The park authorities carry out research on siltation, stopping spread of Water hyacinth and de-siltation activities in the beels present inside the park. To control growth and irradiation of invasive species like Mimosa research on biological methods of controlling the weeds, manual uprooting and weeding before seed settling are done often. The park management is well concerned with the matter of soil erosion and to conserve soil they regularly monitoring of the water flow using multi-date satellite date and planning medium and other long term measures. To increase the existing grassland habitat to provide food for the parks huge herbivorous population various grassland management techniques such as controlled burning for grassland are done for a long time.

The park authorities often repair and maintain the existing infrastructure, vehicles, wireless etc. and acquire of new ones to keep up the conservation of wildlife. Communication in the park is presently carried out through an extensive wireless network system with support from a local NGO (Aaranyak), which has facilitated the arrangement with an international donor agency (David Shepherd Foundation) for a period of 10 years. This has helped in efficient communication among the staffs.

Kaziranga National Park has a wide network of forest roads. These roads are either graveled or fair weather in nature. These roads are to be repaired annually after the flood season is over to make them usable again. There are several wooden bridges and culverts on these roads. These are also to be periodically repaired and some of these are to be reconstructed. These paths along with a number of patrolling paths all over the park help in keeping an eye on the poachers.