The Forest Maker (Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero)

This is the real life story of man named Jadav Payeng from Assam. He has single-handedly grown a sprawling forest on a 550-hectare sandbar in the middle of the Brahmaputra!

The forest now houses many endangered animals, including at least five tigers, one of which bore two cubs recently.The place lies in Jorhat, some 350 km away from Guwahati. Local people call the place 'Molai Kathoni' (Molai's woods) after Payeng's pet name, Molai.

Payeng's story goes back in 1979 when floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar. When waters had receded, Payeng who was only 16 years at the time, found the place dotted with the dead reptiles which became the turning point of his life. "The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage . I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested," says Payeng, now 47. 

Soon he started living on the sandbar. He watered the plants morning and evening and pruned them. After a few years, the sandbar was transformed into a bamboo thicket."I then decided to grow proper trees. I collected and planted them. I also transported red ants from my village, and was stung many times. Red ants change the soil's properties . That was an experience," Payeng says, laughing.

Soon, there were a variety of flora and fauna which burst in the sandbar, including endangered animals like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal tiger.The Assam state forest department learnt about Payeng's forest only in 2008 when a herd of some 100 wild elephants strayed into it after a marauding spree in villages nearby. They also destroyed Payeng's hutment . It was then that assistant conservator of forests Gunin Saikia met Payeng for the first time.

"We were surprised to find such a dense forest on the sandbar. Locals, whose homes had been destroyed by the pachyderms, wanted to cut down the forest, but Payeng dared them to kill him instead. He treats the trees and animals like his own children. Seeing this, we, too, decided to pitch in," says Saikia. "We're amazed at Payeng. He has been at it for 30 years. Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero."

-(The Times of India)

Bats!!!

Recently scrolling through my youtube videos I stumbled upon a clip that I had filmed last year during a visit  to  my long time friend, Dr. Sayak Sovan Dutta’s house in  Hari Navi. It was evening time and there were bats coming out from their daylong slumber out for the night!

But then , it is a matter of thought that such sights are becoming rare with the passage of time as observed by Sayak, ‘’As a child ,I would see many such bats flying out during the evening time but now-a-days their numbers have decreased a lot’’.

• Bats are classified in the mammalian order.
• After rodents, bats are the most diverse and abundant order amongst mammals, with  > 2000 different species described.
• The wing development is the unique characteristic shared by all bats, giving them the power of true flight and also distinguishing them from all other mammalian orders. The wing consists of two layers of very elastic skin stretched between the finger-bones (phalanges) with little or no interconnecting tissue. This membrane usually extends down to the ankle (carpal) joint of the hind leg and in most bats also encloses the tail to form an elastic pouch of skin, known as the inter femoral membrane or uropatagium.
• At least 73 species of bats have been described from the Indo-Pak region.

• Bats can be divided in two main groups (sub-orders):

1.    the fruit bats or flying foxes known as Megachiroptera.

2.    the insect-eating or smaller bats known as Microchiroptera.

• In India seven species occur, from the relatively small Short-nosed Fruit Bat or Cynopterus Sphinx, which is quite a pest of fruit gardens around Mumbai, to the large Flying Fox, Pteropus giganteus.

• Another species named Pteropus has been recorded from Assam and the Andaman Islands, while there are two species of intermediate-sized fruit bats belonging to the genus Rousettus which roost in comparatively dark caves or similar man-made excavations such as cliff temples or deep open wells.
• Two other little-known fruit bats just come into the area from northeastern Assam, the Dawn Sal (Eonycteria spelaea), specialized to feed upon pollen and nectar, and Blanford's Fruit Bat or (Sphaerias blan- ford), is unique among fruit bats because it has no tail and only has a vestigial inter femoral membrane.  

A burgeoning human population, loss of natural habitat, poaching, hunting etc are all responsible for the decreasing numbers of these creatures . India is one of the most populous countries in the world and it was inevitable that man come into conflict with other animals for resources. A number of species are rated as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable as per the 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals, internationally recognised as the list that categorises the status of globally threatened animal species.

It is high time now to take some action regarding the decreasing number of these and such many other creatures which have been a part of the bio-diversity of India.