Nilgiri North Division, December 01, 2014: Ensuring the survival of some of India’s most endangered wildlife means that forest staff need to be able to work and live in often remote forest areas. But, with local water sources proving undrinkable in some areas of the Nilgiri North Division in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, a solution was needed to ensure that forest staff could stay at their anti-poaching camps to protect wildlife populations.

Water purifier at Aadikombai camp.
Photo: Ramakrishnan/WTI

With its healthy population of both Asian elephants and Royal Bengal tigers, the area is part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR ) that includes Mudumalai National Park, Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (Tamil Nadu) and Bandipur Tiger Reserve (in Karnataka).

The habitat also forms an important migratory route for many species moving between the Western and Eastern Ghats. To protect the wildlife, the Forest Department set up six anti-poaching camps and the presence of the Forest Department personnel at strategically located points play a pivotal role in deterring potential poachers.

Basic requirements such as food, water and shelter are mandatory to enable the Forest Department personnel to stay at the camps. However, two of the anti-poaching camps at Asuramattam and Aadikombai did not have clean drinking water due to the chemical composition of water available there. The teams in these two camps had to regularly travel long distances in search of water. Coupled with inaccessible terrain, the need to provide a continuous supply of clean drinking water was vital to ensure a sustained presence of field staff at the camps.

Forest guard drinking clean water at the camp.
Photo: Ramakrishnan/WTI

Following an assessment by WTI and the Nilgiri Forest Department the solution was to install solar-powered water purifiers. With DSWF funding, two solar powered water purification plants were installed.

After months of running without a technical glitch, WTI assessment also showed that staff who had suffered with various gastrointestinal ailments due to unhygienic water drinking were much healthier and could focus on their patrolling work without being concerned over provisions for clean drinking water.

Monitoring of these camps is ongoing to quantify the effectiveness of this short term yet critical Rapid Action Project.