Ram Terang, July 07, 2016: To mark the 67th Vanamahotsava – the annual week-long tree plantation festival observed across India – the Silonijan Forest Range Office, Karbi Anglong, and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) organised a tree plantation programme in the Kalapahar-Daigrung elephant corridor yesterday.
The programme was part of ongoing initiatives to restore the corridor’s habitat, and comes just a few months after the residents of Ram Terang had voluntarily relocated from the area in order that the corridor could be secured. This voluntary relocation, a milestone in the conservation history of northeast India, was a part of the Karbi Anglong Conservation Project in which WTI has partnered with Elephant Family (EF), Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund (JTEF) and IUCN-NL, with support from the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) and Assam Forest Department.
K Bhuyan, Police Officer in Charge, Chokihola, added: “Though this initiative has been carried out by WTI and the forest department, it is actually the duty of every resident individual to care for and protect Mother Nature. On behalf of the police staff of Chokihola branch, I thank everyone who has come forward for this initiative, and extend the police department’s support to WTI in their nature conservation interventions in the Karbi Anglong region.”
Dilip Deori, Project Lead, Karbi Anglong Conservation Project, thanked the villagers and officials for their enthusiastic participation in the Vanamahotsava programme. As a token of appreciation, the WTI team distributed decorated elephant figurines to the 19 Ram Terang families that had voluntarily relocated from the elephant corridor, providing elephants and other wildlife unhindered passage through the Karbi Anglong- Kaziranga landscape.
