Tourists at the sanctuary. File picture

Bharatpur (Rajasthan), Oct. 6: Dharam Singh, a forest guard, has motivated thousands of villagers living around the Bharatpur bird sanctuary to do their bit to save the ecosystem of the world heritage site.

About 2,050 people from 15 villages are working 11 hours a day to uproot the parasitic weed P. juliflora that was threatening to eat up this once famous wintering site for the endangered Siberian crane.

It had been an uphill task persuading the villagers to volunteer although park authorities promised to pay them with the wood of the host trees destroyed by the parasite, said park director Sunain Sharma.

“We left the matter of convincing the villagers to Dharam Singh, who had worked with me during my first tenure as research officer at the park. Dharam is innovative and was our key man in getting the project off the ground,” Sharma said.

The proliferation of the weed started in 1999 when the sanctuary, whose official name is Keoladeo National Park, began facing an acute water shortage. The park, which boasts about 370 species of birds and 375 species of flowering plants, optimally needs 550 million cubic feet of water.

The weed began spreading in the absence of water and took over the 29sqkm park’s entire woodland and also invaded the wetlands.

Earlier, the entire park, including its 11sqkm wooded area, used to get flooded during the wet season, checking the growth of the weed whose seeds perished under such conditions.

Sharma said involving the villagers in clearing the weed was the only way left because of a funds crunch. Hiring contractors who would agree to uproot the host trees for their wood was ruled out because of the stringent Wildlife Protection Act.

Dharam Singh, who is from Malah village in Bharatpur district, was asked to talk to the residents of Ram Nagar, the first village chosen for the experiment.

After several meetings, where the villagers were told that instead of stealing wood from the park they could now earn it through their labour, only five volunteers came forward. Gradually, their number grew.

An “eco-development committee” was formed in Ram Nagar in February this year and the volunteers began the work under the supervision of forest staff. Each family was allotted a 10-metre by 100-metre area and the plots were numbered serially.

The villagers were allowed concessions, such as permission to cart away the wood on bicycles and hand-driven trolleys. Several park gates were opened to give them easy access.

A team of 60 forest staff kept vigil, maintaining a complete record of the wood transported out of the park.

By September, the 550 families now engaged in the task had cleared a 6sqkm area of the weed and taken away 6.1195 tonnes of wood as reward. The authorities have set a deadline of one year to eradicate the weed from the park.