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Manager Of Hope

Manager Of Hope DEWAN SINGH AGE 95 VILLAGE LATA

He remembers accompanying the last expedition to Nanda Devi peak, the country's second highest peak, which falls within the Nanda Devi Biosphere reserve (NDBR). Today, the Union ministry of environment and forests (mef) has to clear all ventures into the core of the reserve. The region, demarcated as a national park in September 1982, is the habitat of the musk deer, the snow leopard and the Himalayan tahr. Incidental, as it maybe for the mef, 17 villages also fall in the buffer. Lata is one of them.

Creation of the national park took away their traditional rights of grazing in the bugiyals (high altitude meadows) and collection of herbs and medicinal plants. In 1988 the 624.62 square kilometres of the national park was declared core of the ndbr with an additional 1,612.12 sq km demarcated as the buffer. The entire economy of the region collapsed in a heap. Livestock, which had come to be a mainstay of the economy of the region, reduced to less than half for lack of grazing access. On paper they were offered compensation, most of which is still to arrive at their doorstep. The affected villages, which had once led the Chipko movement in 1970s, cracked under the pressure and slowly decayed, becoming dependent on government doles, marginal farming, manual labour and occasional smuggling out of medicinal plants and rarely, poaching. Occasional trekking expeditions to the buffer helped supplement their meager incomes. Dewan Singh's lenses may be cracked but he has a clear vision for tomorrow

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