Notes from the Aravallis

This year, I briefly wandered through India's oldest fold mountains  - the Aravallis. The most well known and documented forests of Sariska National Park, as well as the lesser known but equally breathtaking ridges of the Bala Kila in Alwar, and Delhi's Mangar Bani.

Penned below, my musings while travelling through familiar forests in two states, with the people who know them inside out.

Sariska

Sariska

It’s 7 am and we’re moving into Sariska National Park, bird calls dissipating into the forest with the morning rays. We’re lucky today - within minutes we come across a fresh pugmark of the tiger; a cat that only a decade ago, had completely vanished from this wilderness.

Tiger pugmarks

The story of the extinction of Sariska’s tigers and eventual relocation to these forests is one for the history books. 2004’s poaching crisis resulted in the complete extinction of Sariska’s tigers, and before anyone paid heed to the silent cries, it was too late. 
Over a decade later, under some fervent leadership and a dedicated forest staff, Sariska’s forests and flourishing, and so are its tigers.

We sit with the Field Director, Mr. R S Shekhawat, who joined Sariska Tiger Reserve roughly 10 days after its first relocated tiger was killed, due to retaliatory poisoning by villagers. After spending half a day bothering him for our broken down car (read: road trip catastrophes we weren’t prepared to deal with), we got to hear of the struggles that Sariska has seen over the years.

Sariska's lesser known battles.

2008’s tiger extinction made headlines worldwide, and resulted in widespread efforts to once again repopulate the reserve, and have the tiger’s pugmarks pad Sariska’s trails. It seems to be on the right path – 14 tigers now roam Sariska,  with several females having birthed cubs several times.

But the forests of Sariska have seen other grave threats and hard-fought battles that didn’t catch the public eye nearly as much.

The proposed four-laning of a state highway that passed through the buffer area of the National Park, village settlements inside the park that put constant pressure on the ecosystem, and illegal mining have caused major disturbances in Sariska over time. Years later, and with consistent hard work and initiatives undertaken by the forest department, things seem to be getting better.

To begin with, there is the long-fought battle for traffic diversion from the Tehla-Sariska Road, which is a part of the State Highway 29-A and passes right through the core area of the sanctuary. We took a quick detour through the now deserted road, that once saw heavy traffic run through it day and night. Travelling with environmental journalist Prerna Bindra, who has consistently lobbied against the presence of heavy, traffic ridden roads in Protected Areas, I hopped along for a quick visit to the road.

Roads fragment forests and impinge on crucial wildlife habitat.

As we drove through the route with the forest staff, we observed the magnificent scrub-thorn arid vegetation and hilly forests that this road has bisected for decades. Prerna speaks of the disastrous effects that roads have on forests and their wildlife; Indeed, besides fatal accidents that kill rare wild creatures, roads in protected areas fragment wildlife habitats, break contiguity, tree cover and canopy, slice vegetation and impinge on forests and well-worn migratory paths of animals. Roads also serve as conduits to soil erosion and landslides. They provide access and are the first step to ancillary development and an increasing human footprint. Simply put, roads spell the end of wilderness.

After almost a decade-long struggle, and in the face of vehement opposition from various political and other vested interests, traffic from this route has finally been diverted to an alternative bypass road. The area, that has seen frequent wildlife movement (including the tiger) is finally free for them to roam wild.

There have been other positives. Under sound leadership from competent forest officers, three of the 28 villages that were located inside Sariska and dependent on firewood have been relocated, relieving pressure on the crucial forest area. Land that previously was occupied by a village inside the park, Baghani (that was resettled outside Sariska in 2008) has seen tigers rewild it. Several households have been provided LPG supply at 100% subsidy, relieving their dependence on jungle firewood collection. The forests around the village of Rampur (located in North west Sariska) have seen recovered spectacularly, due to kulhadbandi (The practice of stopping the use of axes for wood cutting) 

  

For trackers of the trails

A prose on Sariska’s recovery can’t be complete without an allude to its forest guards – the unsung foot soldiers, who know the trails and tigers of the park inside out. Under the field director’s guidance, teams of two forest guards have been allotted to track the movement of each of the park’s tigers. Forest guards rough it out in the field on a regular basis, and thus know the whereabouts of the park’s precious felines, keeping alive the art of tracking and analysing pugmarks. Under sound protection and relatively lesser human interference, it’s not surprising to hear that the females have birthed cubs, some more than once, and the cubs have begun establishing their own territories.

In addition to keeping the staff on its feet and the park in its glory, Mr Shekhawat has also begun working at reminding the city of Alwar of the spectacular biodiversity that it harbours, outside the park:

Beyond the park - of forts and feathers 

The city of Alwar holds more precious treasures than its central attraction - the grand Alwar Fort or the Bala Kila, as it is more commonly known. 

A large area of the Aravalli hills is protected as the buffer area of Sariska Tiger Reserve, and a significant part of this happens to surround the Alwar Fort. Once a disregarded forest range rarely entered by any visitors or wildlife enthusiasts, the rich bird life and biodiversity of the Bala Kila Eco Conservation Zone is slowly being recognised. Understanding the potential of the area as a good prey base for big cats as well as the bird life it harbours, Mr. Shekhawat soon began to work on creating awareness about this ‘city’ forest and the value is holds. (This area is literally right next to the city of Alwar, and about 20 km from Sariska National Park.) The grandeur of Rajasthan’s hill forts is hardly understated, but the biodiversity of this forgotten forest is yet to be fully realised.

During our brief visit, our (rather inattentive!) eyes immediately spotted the rarely sighted Painted Spurfowl. As we made our way back up the slope of hill from the valley, we noticed the sudden havoc created by a soaring falcon, the Black Eagle, amongst a large company of Parakeets and another flock of Oriental White Eyes! Cameras and lenses were frantically pulled out, distances large and small were speedily covered on foot (and bike!) to keep up with and capture this one on camera. Of course, my camera’s memory filled up at the exact moment that the bird flew over right above me, so you’ll have to make to do with these:

This buffer area, now known as the Bala Quila Eco Conservation Reserve, is now slowly being recognised for the diverse variety of birds it harbours, as well as the healthy population of leopards that resides in these forests. Pythons are seen quite often too. Interestingly, Sariska National Park’s resident tigers have also made a long journey to this side of the city, and inspected the habitat for a few months (during which they were tracked by the forest staff) before heading back to their territories! It's not surprising; from a distance, we spotted a family of the Sambar deer, a favourite of the tiger, making their way up the gorgeous hills.

Imagine this being a short walk away from your city home.

A committed group of volunteers assists with various maintenance activities of the reserve, in what is developing into a citizen participation initiative. Bala Kila is a haven for birders and wildlife enthusiasts alike, and its conservation and education potential as a city forest is slowly being distinguished.

Here be Muggers

Another short detour for reptile enthusiasts visiting Sariska is the Lake Siliserh. The lake, which is located a short drive away from Sariska and Alwar, is also home to about 100 wild Marsh Crocodiles (Muggers), and you are likely to catch them either basking by the bank or peeking up from the middle of the lake, their snout barely breaking the surface of the water - maybe ambushing the avian visitors nearby. Yes, the lake also sees migratory birds during winter months. Our time crunched trip only allowed us a short sighting of the Grey Heron by the bank while it preyed on fish from the lake, but hundreds of species are known to frequent these waters.

Muggers!

This Grey Heron got a fish too large for its beak, and tried to kill it by

 letting it suffer  in the open for a while, picking it up, and dropping it 

again. Genius adaptive strategies.

The hills next door – Aravallis of the Mangar Bani

Walking through Bala Kila forests and forts, I can't help but reminisce. My hometown, Delhi, too homes a ridge of the Aravallis-the city's last sacred grove called Mangar Bani. What once must have been a forest range that connected to Rajasthan’s Aravallis, is now an isolated, fragmented ridge in Delhi – and it doesn’t seem to be doing too well.

A few months ago, I hopped along for a field visit to Delhi/Gurgaon’s last remaining ridge of the Aravallis – the Mangar Bani forests. I was lucky enough to be in the company of Mr. Pradip Kishen, author of Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide (If you’re fascinated by trees, but easily bored by botanical jargon, buy this book.) Pradip can casually recite tree names and their life histories, leaf shapes and sizes in a minute long walk through any corner of Delhi. He tells us fondly of the Dhau tree that characterises these forests, and their role in the maintenance of its ecological balance. We learn about the dried liverworts that line the ground.

To reach a ridge of one of the world’s oldest mountain systems, we reached the region’s busiest metro station, drove for half an hour through narrow, marketed roads and stopped at the entrance gate of Mangar Bani, which happens to be right next to a large-scale garbage dumping ground. After a short hike infused with several short bursts of fascinating Pradip-provided tree-related trivia, we beheld the Mangar Bani.

Here’s some perspective: when you live in a city that consistently exceeds its own air and noise pollution levels by leaps and bounds every year, where breathing masks and air purifiers are slowly becoming the norm, it can be a little startling to suddenly find yourself beholding this silent hill, lined with endless, ancient vegetation of subtle and dark shades of green. 

To think that a leg of one of the oldest mountains in the world still exists in a city that is determined to choke the life of its lungs and rivers is humbling, troubling, and of course, mesmerising.

Naturally(pun intended), the mood is heightened when one thinks of the leopards, hyenas, small mammals that inhabit these grounds. (Several camera traps have captured the presence of leopards, barely 5km from Gurgaon's city limits. There are also striped hyenas, common mongoose, palm civets.)

It immediately turns glum when one thinks of those that have become roadkill on the busy road that bisects the forests. (Adult leopards and cubs have often become roadkill on the Gurgaon-Faridabad road- due to the heavy traffic that passes through).A leopard was recently killed, quite brutally, in a village near Gurgaon.)

It takes a deeper dive when one thinks that the battle to get this range notified as a 'forest' has been a continuous, draining one, where ‘development’ and expansion of real estate has been considered a priority, over saving the remnant lungs of a choking city. 

There have been small victories, but one wonders, how it is that notifying a range of the Aravallis as a 'forest' - a mountain range that is millions of years old, homes rare wildlife and birds and is a crucial wildlife corridor, is an uphill battle? Are the ecosystem services that they provide - have been providing for years: purifying, water, holding soil, replenishing ground water level, clean air, really taken so for granted? 

You'll have to forgive me for the morose tone that this story ends on; musings rarely end on a positive one when you work for conservation. But ask me another day, another time - and hope that things are a little less sombre.