Gibbon Wild Life Sanctuary Assessment of Local Interference and Natural Resource Management

Abstract

Man's interference on the ecological system often creating imbalance of ecosystem beyond tolerance level of the natural regenerative process. Such a situation thereby seriously enervates the life support mechanism of the ecosystem. To meet the increasing human's need, an alternative to the man's interference into the existing ecological system is becoming more essential, which simultaneously can withstand the regenerative and recoverable limit of the ecosystem. Alike Kaziranga and other sanctuaries of Assam, Gibbon Wild Life sanctuary of Jorhat District is exorbitantly suffering from disorderliness of ecosystem. This turmoil of the ecological set up is caused due to the large scale human interference in the forest resources, incompetent forest management policy and the mal practices of the few forest officials. The aggravating situation of the sanctuary calls for a detailed analysis of the major constrains including feasible measures or initiatives to sort out the shortcomings of the sanctuary. As such, an attempt has been made to assess the impacts of the human interference taking into account, in-depth semi-structured interviews and group discussions with local inhabitants of two villages viz Lakhipur and Gobindpur, and with forest officials, upon the sanctuary and also to evaluate the initiatives taken to combat the issues by the local peoples and the existing Forest cum government officials.