Manas Indian Wildlife Sanctuary

By:
Joanne Petrie

SCI/230

Robert Griffin

Axia College

7/15/11

Describing the diversity of life forms found in the foothills of the Himalayas, on a gentle slope where the wooded forests give way to streams, and grasslands the Manas wildlife sanctuary is a home place habitat to many of a variety of endangered species and wildlife. The Indian rhino and Indian elephant and the pygmy wild hog, and tiger are the main endangered wildlife species that are threatened. (UNESCO.org). The Manas wildlife sanctuary received its name from the Goddess of Manasa and the location is well known by its reputation for its striking and sensational scenery, with a variety of wildlife environments where plant and animal life naturally or normally lives and grows.
The Biological Interrelationships The biology to life and the living processes of the sanctuary is founded by the UNESCO
Natural World Heritage site, a Tiger Reserve Project, an Elephant Reserve and a Biosphere
Reserve in Assam, India, and is in contact touching along a boundary with the Royal Manas
National park in Bhutan. The sanctuary is well known for its endangered and rare wildlife species like the Pygmy hog, tiger, and Assam Roofed Turtle, Asian Monkeys, and Hispid
Hare. The goal of the National reserves is to preserve and fully fund the sanctuary to keep the wildlife from becoming extinct and alive and to thrive for many years to come. This is an effort that will take all people involved to help keep things organized and maintained. The National park reserve also constitutes the main core of the Manas Tiger Reserve that protects the important migratory wildlife resource along its borders of the West Bengal to the Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan borderlines. The wetlands are an international importance to the reserve for the protection and survival of the hispid hare, pygmy hog, and Asian monkey or also called the golden langur. These are located in the forest divisions of
Kachugaon, Western Assam Wildlife reserve, and Haltugaon, and North Kamrup. J. Petrie 1
The Biological Interrelationships The life forms in the area have approximately fifty five mammals, three amphibians, and fifty reptiles that have been founded and recorded in the wildlife sanctuary. Many of these animal species are on the highly endangered list because their populations are extremely low.
Along with the animals mentioned above there are also clouded leopards, tigers, rare exotic birds like the Bengal floricans, jungle fowls, fishing eagles, giant hornbills, pelicans, falcons, serpent eagles, magpie robins, scarlet minivets, bee-eaters, and the rhinoceros the list goes on. Without the proper mutual relationships the biology and the living life forms in the sanctuary would have a null to minimum chance for their survival. The warm and humid climate allows for a favorable environment for the animals and vegetation in the sanctuary to thrive and live which is most convenient for them to habitat the area. Most of the mammals are accumulated to the rainforests while the tigers, elephants, wild buffalo, and water fowl birds have their refuge in the riparian grasslands that are located near the banks of the River Brahmaputra. There are three types of main vegetation in the sanctuary which are; tropical moist and dry that fall off or shed seasonally, and the tropical semi-green forests in the northern part of the park, and the streamline grasslands in the western part that covers about 50% of the areas.
Human Intrusions The human interferences that threatened the wildlife sanctuary were founded to be moving too rapidly into the destruction of the environmental degradation due to the human intrusions lasting thousands of years since its history. The Manas National Wildlife Sanctuary was officially and formally declared a sanctuary on October 01, 1928 with a location of 360 sq. km. and between
1951 and 55 the area was increased to 391 sq. km. In December of 1985 it was declared a World J. Petrie 2
Heritage site by UNESCO by, Kahitama R.F., the Kokilabari R. F. and the Panbari R. F. which were added in the 1990’s to form the Manas National Park. In the year of 1992, UNESCO declared it as a world heritage site in danger due to heavy poaching and terrorist activities.
(Wikipedia). The UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that ensures its purpose to contribute to (peace) and (security) by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and the human rights along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter. It has rules of the laws in Article 2, 4, and 5 to ensure that active and effective measures are taken for the protection and conservation and preservation of the cultural and natural heritages of its territory belong to that State, are protected for its natural features, geological and physiographical formations, and its natural sites.
Natural Features; consisting of biological and physical formations that are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view.
Geological and Physiographical Formations; precisely delineated areas that constitute the habitat of threatened animals and vegetation of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, or conservation.
Natural Sites; delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation, or natural beauty. “UNESCO History” www.unesco.org. Retrived 23
April 2010. These are some of the protections that exist to safeguard and preserve the areas for ecological uniqueness and animal and plant life in their areas.

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The Protections and Efforts The efforts and protections to stop or reduce the intrusions of human-wildlife conflicts refers to the disciplines of the interactions between animals in the wild and the people’s negative impact of their resources, or wild animals in their natural habitats. This only happens when wildlife survival or needs overlap with human populations, creating costs to humans and wild animals when natural wildlife habitats are displaced. Some of the human- wildlife conflicts are crop damage, livestock depredation, injuries to people, loss of human life, damage to property, injuries to wildlife, animals deaths, and destruction of habitats. The efforts for protections and efforts are to collect case studies, analyze management strategies, and good practice activities. These aims are the various projects to protect and efforts made to control wildlife which includes all non-domesticated animals, plants, and other organisms. It also helps to protect the positive and negative impacts found in all ecosystems, desserts, rain forests, and urban sites of distinct forms of wildlife around the world that is impacted by human encroachment. The efforts that have been made to preserve the wildlife sanctuary are the rules of law to the protection act of the Manas Wildlife Sanctuary its preview is as follows;
I: Indian Wildlife
II: Wildlife Protection Act
III: The Draft Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2010
IV: Conservation of Wildlife in India
The Individuals that Staff the Conservation Conservation is measured by the management plans of the staff members of the Protection J. Petrie 4
Act practices to stop and control killings, poaching, encounters of arson and looting, abductions, and snatching of firearms and wireless equipment. Protection squad’s patrol camps and interior areas on a regular basis to promote safe and secure surroundings of animals natural habitats and organize special groups to create nature camps, meetings, processions, and eco-clubs for education and awareness. The staff consists of forest rangers, deputy rangers, head game watchers, forest guards, foresters, and game watchers and many other park administrators that staff the sanctuary to re-establish control and manpower. Funding from the park is used to benefit the relations with the villagers and infrastructure of the park management. I would propose additional measures like investments in such activities as water conservation, forestry, biology, ecology, land reform, and protected areas of management skills to insure the preservation of property and wildlife reforms to provide solutions around the globe. These would have to be tailored to the surrounding communities and species involved in the conservation, payments for environmental services, and ecotourism, wildlife friendly products, community based natural resources, and many other field organizations. What would be lost if intrusion keeps going unchecked would be a disaster at a global level such as pollution, logging, land desire, illegal fishing, poaching, animal and plant life. We need to protect our natural resources and ecological prosperity from day-to-day in order to maintain the balance of nature and our own well-beings. By helping to protect our biological diversity this will help to liberate the natural world and its environment from depleting its ecosystems, living creatures small or large, and communities from interacting with components such as our air, water, and other natural resources that we all need in order to survive. Disaster management is an important step to protect our biological diversity, because all living organisms contribute to natural disasters and environmental processes. As they say “Survival of the Fittess”, means for any population, there will be a limited number of resources, and as the population grows, competition for resources will increase.

REFERENCES

“Member States United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization”. Portal. unesco.org Retrieved 23 April 2010.
Travel in India. (N.D.) Wildlife National Park of India. Retrieved April 8, 2010, from http://www.indiavisitinformation.com/india-tour/india-wildlife-tour/manas-tiger-reserve.shtml Benn, J. (2008). A tale of two places-restoring rhinos to their ranges in Assam, India. retrieved
April 8, 2010 from, http://www.panda.org/news_facts /newsroom/features/ index .cfm?uNewsID=\131281.
UNESCO.org (2008). World Heritage. Manas Wildlife Sanctuary. Retrieved April 9, 2010, from http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/338.