CWRC, Kaziranga National Park, July 17, 2016: A Pre-flood Awareness Meeting for the heads of villages located on the fringes of Kaziranga National Park was organised at IFAW-WTI’s Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) on July 10.

Twenty-seven revenue villages on the margins of Kaziranga NP are affected during the annual monsoon floods. These villages are governed by 11 village heads under the Kaziranga Mouza, Bokakhat Revenue Circle, in the Golaghat district of Assam (covering the Central and Eastern Ranges of Kaziranga). Village heads are trusted figures and their word is accepted and honoured by the village communities at large. It was deemed crucial, therefore, to brief them about CWRC’s wildlife rescue activities during the impending floods and about IFAW-WTI’s pan-northeast conservation activities in general.

The meeting was attended by eight village heads – Biren Koch, Sunil Das, Smt Punya Bora Saikia, Smt Niru Gogoi, Budhu Mazi, Darsingh Hanse, Lakhiram Orang and Debakanta Das. WTI Deputy Director and centre-in-charge Dr Rathin Barman, CWRC senior veterinarian Dr Panjit Basumatary, and Dilip Deori, WTI Project Lead of Karbi Anglong interacted with the village heads on various issues related to wildlife welfare.

Subhasish Das, Divisional Forest Officer of the Eastern Assam Wildlife Division (under which Kaziranga NP falls) also attended the meeting; he spoke with the village heads about wildlife protection and promised his full co-operation to IFAW-WTI in the conduct of its conservation activities in Kaziranga, not only during the floods but throughout the year. Biren Koch, a senior village head (and a key person during the rhino calf rescue of November 2014) expressed his appreciation for CWRC’s activities and, in concert with the other village heads, promised his co-operation in saving wildlife during the floods.

This was the first time since CWRC’s inception in 2002 that the heads of several flood-affected villages around Kaziranga had come together to discuss wildlife welfare during the annual floods.