Meghalaya tribes convert their land into wildlife reserve

It is a unique move as the villagers from Tura are donating about 500 hectares of the land for wildlife conservation.

In a unique gesture towards wildlife preservation, a tribal village in Selbalgre in Meghalaya has declared itself as a village wildlife reserve.

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The village is located about 20 kilometers from the Tura district headquarters has an important Hollock Gibbon (Bunopithecus hoolock) habitat. Initially, the villages have donated about 500 hectares of the land and are willing to give more land in future including a five square kilometer forest.

“This is a welcome move, and is quite unique, since the villagers themselves have decided to keep aside some of their land for wildlife conservation,” said Dr Rahul Kaul of Wildlife Trust of India.

The objective of the project is to come out with a policy document to help the district autonomous councils to tackle contemporary issues on wildlife conservation.

As part of this project, WTI has been collecting information on the forest resource extractions by the villagers and also produced forest cover maps to help in the study.