A River Runs Through It
The distinct nests of the Crematogaster ants, like oddly
shaped footballs suspended precariously from the edge of a branch or jutted
between two, remind me that I am in a familiar landscape. They’re quite rare to
come by in the central Indian highlands where I now stay. These pagoda nests,
as they are called, stand out starkly up in the trees. They are called pagoda nests because their papery
roof-like structures made from wood pulp appear to be piled one above the
other, like a pagoda temple – an adaptation used by the Western Ghat species of
Crematogaster ants to drain off the rain.
I’m looking at a forest that is seven years older since I
last saw it – and it looks beautiful – the hills that roll in front of me are
straddled with lianas embracing their host trees, and the fruiting of figs has
brought together the most iconic of this forest’s species together. The smell
of the forest is the only thing that hasn’t changed in all these years – it is
still indescribable but remains unforgettable and yearning.
The familiar faces of people that run Kulgi Nature Camp and
the familiar traces of trees around this camp bring back some distant memories.
Kulgi is situated in Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary, a part of the Dandeli-Anshi
Tiger Reserve. There are very few changes in Kulgi Nature Camp – much of the
camp remains exactly the same, bearing the same colour even. The conference
hall retains its beautiful wooden walls, but is completely transformed from the
inside to a well equipped air-conditioned conference hall which looks nothing
like what it was before. Kulgi still remains in a network shadow region – no
mobile phones work here, and that has probably kept the essence of a truly wild
nature camp alive. And then there are the ever prancing squirrels, chital, and
other wildlife of Kulgi that reminds you of where you are.
When I had first heard the loud, resonating, metallic
laughter of the Malabar Giant Squirrel, it was hard to recognize it as a sound
made by a rodent. It reverberates all across the hills and is the sound of this landscape – to hear
them sing to you again is as good a gift as is seeing them frolicking in the
high canopy. Over the years, I notice that their population has increased –
they’re more common now than they were seven years ago – I don’t mean that they
were uncommon or rare earlier, but to see about three or four in one glance
seemed quite easy this time than before. We saw several of them chasing one
another, feeding on curious things on trees (not all fruits, some were also
nibbling on stems) – but mostly we heard their calls echo deep in the ravines.
We are here to meet likeminded folks from the institution I
work in, The Corbett Foundation,
and to be mentored in the lay of the forests from Dr A J T Johnsingh and Dr
Asad Rahmani, two eminent naturalists of India. Dr Johnsingh sings when he
speaks of the forests – and I listen as if I were listening to a Narnian flute.
Dr Rahmani orchestrates the ways of a biologist – and I listen as if I were
listening to a canticle. We came to learn to read nature in a language that is
unwritten, but can be interpreted by those who’ve been out trying to
communicate with it.
Dandeli’s inherent richness has always been close to me.
Having come here three times before, once as a student of Bachelor of Science,
once as a Master’s, and once as a volunteer for a tiger ungulate prey-density
estimation study, I had scoured these hillsides on my knees and elbows (because
I kept falling, and crawling was the only way to pass through Calamus rotang), and got bitten and
stung by the most nefarious of invertebrates – the infamous ticks and the
painful paper wasps – nefarious, but also my most favourite – and fell in love
with this landscape that defines the northern Western Ghats.
Being in a network shadow region, the only place for you to
make a phone call is on a watchtower looking over one of the many valleys of
Dandeli. It is a ten minute, gently uphill walk to the watchtower which is
somewhat of a meeting place for strangers – tourists, forest department staff,
and locals come here to make calls. On the way lies a waterhole that is visited
by elephants. A larger-than-life painting of a leopard, and of a melanistic
leopard standing boldly, its golden eyes staring into the actual forests
beyond, is erected at the watchtower.
We made dutiful trips to this watchtower – every walk on
this road revealed something new. Once I saw a male Malabar Grey Hornbill, a
Western Ghats endemic, trying to woo a female by offering her a nuptial gift of
a fig from the tree they were sitting on. I stood not fifteen feet from them,
and saw him offer five times. On the next he gobbled it himself in the way of a
hornbill, by ducking his head backwards to toss it once and then gulp it down
whole. The female moved on, and he followed her. A pair of White-bellied
Woodpecker flew across the hills in their broken flight when I walked under a
tree they were probing. A Malabar Barbet knocked on his copper bell in a
continuous monotone, and a pair of Sambar ran from under the skeletal remains
of the deciduous trees on the opposite hill when I approached the watchtower.
We also saw fresh elephant dung on the road, and on asking
an elderly man if it belonged to wild elephants, he was sure in his reply – it
was wild, and he picked up the lump and carried it with him. We found elephant
dung twice on this road – perhaps we were unlucky to not have seen this solo
elephant – perhaps we were lucky. About 64 elephants are said to inhabit this
tiger reserve, looked after by the management with utmost priority for their
conservation.
Around the last bend on this road, right before reaching the
watchtower is a tree that bears curious scratches that go twenty feet up the
trunk. The going-up and coming-down claw marks are quite distinct and could only
be the work of a sloth bear, if not a human. My delight in seeing these marks
was especially profound since my first ever sighting of a sloth bear was in
Dandeli while I was on a transect – I recalled this experience in To each his
own fear. It was also exciting
because I was here to present our work on understanding sloth bear-human
conflict in the Kanha Pench Landscape in Central India.
The Forest Department has undertaken enormous efforts in the
last few years to bring Dandeli-Anshi in the forefront – not only for tourism,
but also for the conservation of this landscape. A beautiful presentation by
the Mr Srinivasulu, the Field Director, about this landscape is published
online.
The rumours of the melanistic leopard, popularly called a
black panther, were always around. We made a dusty ride of the reserve to
explore the forest with a hope of seeing a leopard, but weren’t lucky to see
anything through the dense tropical forests. Mr Srinivasulu informed us that 14%
of leopards they camera trapped in 2014 showed different variations of melanism
(for more details, read
this paper). There is no surprise in telling that I saw none of the black
panthers, but to be assured of its presence through proclamations of my
colleagues sighting one was heartening (although a little envious!).
On a morning nature walk we stumbled upon the pugmarks of a
leopard that had walked nearly a kilometre on this track, probably a day or two
ago, not half a kilometre from Kulgi Nature Camp. A night before, I remember
hearing alarm calls of Chital from behind the tents. This nature trail, created
by the Forest Department exclusively to experience the mixed deciduous forest
of Dandeli is an easy but an adventurous walk – halfway on the trail is a
waterhole surrounded by tall trees, and by the edge of this drying waterhole we
found the dung of an elephant. This dung wasn’t there the day before when we
had made a short visit.
I had fervently documented all that I had seen seven years
ago (read here),
and was delighted to see some of them again. Ants in particular, the Leptogenys, the Crematogaster, the fiery Weaver Ants Oecophylla smargdina that had formed extended colonies spread over
entire trees, the effervescent golden-backed ants (Camponotus cf sericeus),
and arboreal Polyrhachis and Cataulacus were all a warm sight. What particularly
piqued my interest was the high density of the Yellow Crazy Ant, Anoplolepis gracilipes (read about this
ant here).
I don’t remember seeing this ant in Kulgi seven years ago, maybe I had not
noticed them then. This ant, capable of forming super-colonies and threatening
the ground-dwelling invertebrate diversity, was the most common species of ant
around Kulgi Nature Camp – an indicator of a disturbed habitat. I had proposed
a study on the distribution and behaviour of this ant farther north in the
Sahyadri closer to Mumbai and Pune cities – and it will be worth considering
their distribution all the way down south to Dandeli, and perhaps even further
below. What would be interesting to see, after genetic analysis, is whether
they belong to different races or belong to one giant super-colony.
To see the signs of most of these animals, whether elephants
or ants, and all the things in-between, regularly wandering about the area
gives me hope. Dandeli-Anshi landscape is said to have many small hamlets
spread over its entire protected area – and living with the wildlife, although
with several intrinsic inconvenience of its own, is worthy of note if not
celebration.
One of the outstanding things undertaken actively by the
government was to do exactly this: to celebrate the connection of the people
with the wilderness of the Western Ghats – an important but lesser known birthplace
of many prominent rivers.
A river runs through Dandeli-Anshi Tiger Reserve, and it has
a name: Kali. This forest is an important catchment of Kali River, a gorgeous
river with dark green waters around which the life – human and wild alike –
breathes, pulsates, procreates and celebrates as one. A lifeline of a sort for
the agrarian communities but with six major dams for hydroelectricity on its already
short course of 184 km.
The Forest Department along with noted photographers and
filmmakers documented and released a 23 minute film highlighting the landscape
that is shaped by Kali Nadi, its
spiritual connection with the people of this land, and of the wildlife to which
this river is a mother.
It is available for a modest Rs. 100 at souvenir shops, and
can also be viewed on
YouTube.
The documentary has won several awards and came to the notice
of policymakers – and Kali, a river barely visible from space, was suddenly in
the forefront.
On the release of the film, Deccan Herald reported
on August 3, 2015 that the government was considering renaming Anshi-Dandeli
Tiger Reserve after Kali.
In December
2015, this reserve was officially renamed as Kali Tiger Reserve, after the
river that is the heart of this
landscape.
This literary change may seem little, but many will see this
protected area now not just as a reserve for wildlife, but as a measure to
conserve a vital resource that nourishes all life. To me this little change can
have a profound emotional and practical significance for its conservation. The
more the people know of the priceless value of conserving a river, the more
people will believe in conserving a certain stretch of land.
We treaded this river for several kilometres watching
Malabar Pied Hornbills gliding above the emerald waters, gazing at forests so thick
that no light passed through them, and listening to insects so loud that no
other sound would have been louder. To feel the rushing of the river splashing
on your face, to drink its waters of the purest form was because of a protected
area, and this was a tribute to a river which it deserved from the very
beginning.
Nobody claims to have created a river, neither was the river
reborn per se, nor was it newly discovered, but it struck a chord – a little
nerve that will, I earnestly hope, make us think twice before damming and
threatening an entire ecosystem that sustains human and wild life without
prejudice.
Kali Tiger Reserve is still young, and faces many challenges
ahead – forest fires are common especially in the adjoining territorial forest
divisions; over 30 to 40 tigers are said to be present in the 2200 sq km
landscape of Dandeli-Anshi-Sharavati valley-Khanapur complex (source)
and 64 elephants in Kali alone – monitoring them in this hilly terrain is a
daunting task; human settlements are spread over a vast area of the reserve;
and hunting is still a menace. Fortunately, all of these concerns are being
addressed by the Forest Department, and they’re leaving no stone unturned in
tackling them.
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A River Runs Through It is also the name of a novel by Norman Maclean
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