This is the first in a three-part series about how the Hollongapar Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary, home to India’s only ape, is being compromised on all fronts in the name of development projects.
As the harvesting of crops came to a close on Magh Bihu, Binoy Karmakar, a young grassroots activist from Mariani in the Jorhat district of Assam, says almost 75 per cent of the land in his village, Hollonguri, that borders Nagaland, was not cultivated. Located in the eco-sensitive zone of Hollongapar Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary (HGWLS), Hollonguri shares its predicament with several other villages facing increasing human and elephant conflict. To make it worse, global metal manufacturing giant Vedanta is all set to explore oil in the eco-sensitive zone, with the National Board of Wildlife approving the proposal on January 9.
