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Tribals campaign for protecting wildlife

Drumming up support: Tribals celebrating the Nuakhai festival inside Sunabeda forest.

Bhubaneswar: Here is a good news for the State Government and non-governmental organisations, which have been incessantly organising a number of awareness programmes to raise the level of consciousness among people on conserving forests and its ecosystem on the eve of Wildlife Week Celebrations, as the people living inside two sanctuaries in the State actually made a unique beginning this year.

Hundreds of villagers residing inside the Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary in Nuapada district and Badrama Wildlife Sanctuary in Sambalpur district celebrated Nuakhai, one of the most important festivals of western Orissa, deep inside the forest and offered special pujas to the wild animals.

Nuakhai is one of the occasions when communities get together and celebrate the harvest in their respective houses and villages. “However, this time we celebrated the festival inside the forest.

We thought since we depend on forest resources for our livelihood and wildlife is an integral part of the forest, people should realise their roles in conservation efforts,” says secretary of Sunabeda Sangharsh Vahini, Duryodhan Majhi.

People from six gram panchayats such as Sunabeda, Soseng, Sialati, Kermeli, Bharuamunda, and Chulabhat congregated at Kermeli to worship nature and symbolically observed Nuakhai, considering the forest and wildlife as their family members.

The celebration of Nuakhai was started in September and continued for one month across western Orissa. Similarly, villagers depending on Badrama forest also assembled at Kureibahal village and participated in the celebration.

Elderly people talked about necessity of conserving forest and wildlife for future.

About 30,000 people living in the sanctuaries depend on the forest resources.

Earlier policies were centered on the principle of shifting the people in the fringe areas of forests had alienated people from conservation, said Tushar Das, a researcher working with an NGO Vasundhara.

“The gesture on part of villagers is a good beginning. Integration of conservation models with the popular festivals would go a long way in addressing conservation goals,” Mr. Das said.

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