Saving Sonai-Rupai

It is a matter of grave concern that the Sonai-Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary in the Sonitpur district has been under massive encroachment and that around three lakh people have settled themselves inside the 220 sq km sanctuary in the past few decades. The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Assam, has shamelessly admitted this before the NGT recently. In a recent order, the NGT put on record that the PCCF of Assam has also admitted that the encroachers have cleared low-land evergreen and semi-evergreen forest areas, built permanent houses, and cultivated commercial crops like betel nut trees, coconut, rubber, and tea alongside agricultural crops. According to the affidavit of the PCCF, more than 68 percent of Sonai-Rupai is under encroachment. While it was the duty of the forest department and government to protect the wildlife sanctuary, the reality, as alleged, is that even government agencies have built roads, bridges, and schools within the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary. It is not known what compelled the forest department to remain a silent spectator when the first encroacher entered the particular wildlife sanctuary. But it appears that there was some kind of connivance from political parties and some kind of indirect patronage that encouraged encroachers to illegally occupy the wildlife sanctuary. Sonai-Rupai was declared a game reserve way back in 1934 because of its rich biodiversity. Once it had rhinoceros and wild buffalo, apart from tigers, elephants, wild boars, hog deer, barking deer, and about 160 species of birds. It comprises evergreen, semi-evergreen, and moist deciduous forests, and its continuity with the extensive forests of Arunachal Pradesh once enhanced its mammalian and avian diversity. That encroachers are having a field day inside Sonai-Rupai is an outcome of utter negligence by the authorities to protect it, and officers responsible for its protection should be prosecuted, even if they have gone into retirement now. The NGT, which has played a very crucial role in protecting Kaziranga National Park, should take stern measures to clear the encroachment, simultaneously awarding exemplary punishment to the forest officers.