Koraput: Column after column of hand-crafted bamboo products welcome visitors to Talur, an idyllic hamlet in Boipariguda block.

Handcrafted bamboo products are often considered indigenous to states in India's northeast, especially Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pra-desh. But, for members of the Durua community in Koraput district, bamboos are not only the source of their livelihood but also a way of life.

From houses to the fences surrounding them, cradles for babies to baskets for hens - almost every product of household use in a Durua family is made from bamboo. The tribal community utilises ba-mboos in every way they can.

The villagers make about 50 products from bamboo. The best gift that a young Durua boy can present his beloved is a payandata (comb) made from bamboo.

Sitaram Durua of Malipadar village displayed the products he makes from bamboo - karli (a small basket), uugal (cradle), keanti (winnowing fan), gerriz (umbrella) and trays of different sizes.

"Children in the Durua community are taught to cut bamboo plants in a manner that they grow again. They never destroy the forest. After all, their existence depends on these groves," said Prafulla Padhi, a Jeypore academic.

Apart from some minor agricultural work and selling forest produce, the community has been eking out a living by selling bamboo products for ages. However, the depletion of bamboo forests, primarily because of timber mafia, has posed a challenge to their survival. The forest department's restriction on indiscriminate felling of bamboo trees has also thrown a spanner in the works.

"We collect bamboo from dense forests, make various household products and sell them at weekly markets of Ramagiri, around 15km from our village. We earn about Rs 100 to Rs 120 a week," said villager Guluchu Durua."With forest guards becoming strict over tree felling, we are worried about our future. Even if we manage to survive, what will happen to our kids?" he asked.

Padhi also admitted the concerns. "The members of the Durua community are facing these problems because unscrupulous timber mafia are smuggling bamboo from the dense forests of Ramagiri," he said.

Apart from selling bamboo products, the community supplements it income by selling minor forest products at weekly haats in Ramagiri, Boipariguda and Gupteswar. If the clampdown on tree felling continues and mafia continue to deplete the resources, the community will have no other option but to take up selling forest products as their primary source of livelihood.