Jorhat, April 16: An NGO, associated with conservation of wildlife, will campaign to increase the area under Dehing Patkai wildlife sanctuary in Upper Assam.

In wake of the poaching of a wild elephant in the reserve forest area recently, Nature’s Beckon will launch the drive to increase the area from the notified 111.19 square km to cover the entire area of Jeypore, Upper Dehing and Dirok reserve forests in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts.

Soumyadeep Datta, founder of Nature’s Beckon, said despite Dehing Patkai being notified as a sanctuary on January 4, 2004, by the state government, it was yet to come under a separate wildlife division and therefore, the rainforest area lacked proper protection.

Datta, who is an Ashoka Fellow, said in the nineties, Nature’s Beckon had carried out a sustained programme to declare the rainforest area, which covers more than 500 square km as a sanctuary so that it would come under a separate wildlife division and the rare and endangered species of birds and animals, which populate this patch be adequately protected.

“After culling out a 111.19 square km area from this forest area and declaring it a sanctuary, the government had promised that more areas would be covered step by step. However, no more areas come under the sanctuary and a separate forest division has not been created till now. It is still looked after by the Dibrugarh forest division,” he said.

“Recently, our people found the carcass of a wild elephant without its tusks and informed the forest division. In the absence of a separate wildlife division with additional staff to protect the sanctuary which has the largest population of hoolock gibbons in the region and other rare animals like the Himalayan black bear, leopard cat, clouded leopard, porcupine, binturong, barking deer, hog badger, gaur, golden cat, marbled cat as well as other primate species, rampant poaching is on here,” Datta alleged. He said with the passive support of the forest department there was largescale illegal mining of coal and quarrying of stone going on. Datta said like Kaziranga National Park, this place could be developed as a great eco-tourism spot.

“Except for declaring the Dehing Patkai wildlife sanctuary, the government has done nothing to develop the area as a tourist spot. The Dehing Patkai forest area is also a bird watchers’ paradise with about 300 bird species, including threatened species like slender-billed vulture, white winged duck, greater adjutant stork, greater spotted eagle, lesser adjutant stork and others, inhabiting the place,” he said.

“With a little infrastructure development, the fringe people will benefit immensely and take the pressure off the forest and poaching and illegal felling of logs will go down,” he said.