Preserving the Forest: Heroes of Bannerghatta National Park

By Jyothy Karat

Small platoon of men and women called ‘Forest Watchers’ working on the ground for the Forest Department.

The great natural wealth of India, some of the last surviving bio-diverse eco-systems of the world, is protected and conserved by a relatively small platoon of men and women called ‘Forest Watchers’ working on the ground for the Forest Department. While the senior officials of the department are often from educated and affluent sections of the societies, the forest watchers are often men and women from impoverished tribal/ indigenous communities, working on a daily wage. The role they play have become more essential in the past years, with the escalation of human-animal conflict in the landscapes they strive to protect. When India went into lockdown, a small team from Arocha (an NGO working to conserve elephants in Bannerghatta National Park, Karnataka) were working tirelessly in the forest. Their aim was to aid the forest watchers when they needed the most help.

The Forgotten Forest

Bannerghata Nation Park is situated at the northernmost tip of the Eastern Ghats in peninsular India. It is a sparsely protected area belonging to the reserves in Karnataka as well as the adjoining state of Tamilnadu. According to Avinash Krishnan, the senior researcher at Arocha - an NGO working to conserve elephants, the Bannerghata National Park is largely absent from the collective consciousness of the people of Bangalore. Leaving what he describes as the ‘forgotten forest’, and its creatures to their inevitable state of conflict.

Dilip Kumar

28yr old Dilip Kumar was one of the field officers from Arocha who worked through this pandemic period. He has worked in BNP since 2012, conducting field research, helping the forest department mitigate human-elephant conflict here and had been working around the clock for relief measures during the pandemic.

The Bannerghata-Hosur Landscape

A village amidst the forest

With the rising pressure from human population and development in the region, conflict with the wild elephants living here has been escalating over the years. This year was the hardest. The elephants don’t care for the pandemic, nor do they stop for a lockdown. As they continued to mow down crops and raid crops of sustenance farmers, the forest department found themselves in the difficult position of not being able to feed their own staff to carry out the job at hand.

Two Women

The women in the region suffer most from the consequences of human-elephant conflict in Bannerghatta National Park. They are actively involved in agriculture and they also take care of their families, therefore, they feel the burden much harder when the crops are raided by the wild elephants. This also makes them less tolerant of the wild creatures that live around the villages.

The Forest Watchers

The Forest watchers at the Kaaleshwari Anti-poaching Bannerghatta Camp. Bhagwatha Rao(36) and S.Sampagni (52) have been working for 14 years and 30 years respectively. Muniraju(30) and Kaalappa(30) have also been working with them over the last few years.

Patrol on foot

Dilip Kumar(left), field biologist at Arocha goes for a forest patrol with the frontline staff at Harohalli, Bannerghatta National Park.

Skin of a Cobra

Dilip Kumar examines snake skin found on the path during a patrol of the forest with his colleagues.

Measuring, Jyothy Karat

Dilip Kumar and Avinash Krishnan measure an elephant footprint to get a rough estimation of the height of the elephant they are tracking during the patrols.

Dilip on Duty

Dilip Kumar on a night patrol tracking elephants reported to have entered a village in Laxmipuram, Hosur, in the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape.

Vigilance

Villagers sit in tree houses in their fields for night vigil against elephant raids in Laxmipuram village, near the Bannerghatta National Park.

The Report,

Field officers from Arocha gather information from villagers about the whereabouts of wild elephants seen in Laxmipuram village, near the Bannerghatta National Park. The presence of an elephant and its location is shared amongst the villagers and with the patrol officers from the forest department and Arocha.

Treasure

In Laxmipuram village, most families grow Raagi millet for sustenance. The crop is harvested during the winter and the harvest becomes their staple food for the entire year.

When the fields are raided by elephants, these neatly stacked rows of millet is eaten, strewen around, destroyed and rendered unusable.

Sign of an elephant

Field officers from Arocha track wild elephants seen in Laxmipuram village, near the Bannerghatta National Park. The team discerns that the road sign was pushed over by the passing elephants.

A new dawn

After hours of patrolling, the officers from the forest department and Arocha gave up trying to locate (and ultimately chase away) the wild elephants that are a threat to the villagers and their crops. In the wee hours of the morning however, elephants were reported to have raided a field after all.

A brief enquiry into its location revealed that all through the night of patrolling, the elephants were only a short distance away from the people- hiding, in the tapestry of the forgotten forest.

About the Photographer

Jyothy Karat is a documentary filmmaker and photographer, based out of Bangalore with over a decade of experience in the field. She is the recipient of the 2020 Explorer Grant for Storytelling from the National Geographic Society for Research and Exploration. In her work, she covers subjects related to ecological justice. Her documentary work includes stories about forest conservation, human-animal conflict, displacement of indigenous communities, water and air pollution in India. One of her most recent projects explores the human-elephant interactions in Kerala, India and the concerns that arise from the complexities of the management of captive elephants in the state. She is currently exploring the impact of climate change on indigenous communities in the Himalayas.

Jyothy's work documenting life in the Nilgiris Biosphere is part of UNESCO’s Global campaign to influence policymakers and global leaders to make green initiatives (here). Her work was exhibited at the UN headquarters in New York and in Geneva and at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Her photographs were also shown during the COP21 conference in France and subsequently in Morocco, Belgium, and Portugal. Jyothy’s latest exhibition about education transforming lives in the Nilgiris opened at the United Nations Headquarters in NewYork on July 1, 2019 (here). She regularly contributes documentary films to the broadcaster, CGTN. Visit her website (here) to know more about her work.

Project Location

Bengaluru, India

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