Situated 80 km from Dehradun, is a village called Bangseel, in the Tehri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand. A young boy from this village, had a certain passion and love for nature, which could even eclipse that of renowned naturalists and ecologists. A boy of the village, but a man of nature, Arun Gour established the NGO – Devalsari Paryavaran Sanrakshan Awam Takniki Vikas Samity (Devalsari Environment Protection & Technology Development Society) in 2014 to conserve the pristine and old forests of Devalsari.
It really is rare to think that you can contribute to the cause of conserving nature through eco-tourism. But Arun made it possible through the community centre that his NGO is running at Devalsari. Apart from educating the tourists about the surrounding areas, eco-tourism also helps to understand the importance of nature and habitat itself. The loss of habitat is a big issue which people don’t really talk about. But Arun’s model helps in the protection of the dense deodar forest that is here at Devalsari. “We saw that the forest are being cut here without any thought and people are also not aware of the impacts. To stop all this, we formed Devalsari Environment Protection and Technology Development Society.”
Apart from the problem of deforestation, migration is a big issue plaguing the surrounding villages, wherein the youth were leaving the mountains to find lucrative jobs in the bigger cities. So, Arun set up the Deodar Eco Tourism and Research Centre (DERC) here which acts as a guest house for the tourists who come here. DERC provides livelihood to the people of the local community through employment. This model of eco-tourism has won Arun the Sanctuary Asia Wildlife Service Award, which has clearly proven that it is possible to protect biodiversity through community-based conservation.
The entire area of Devalsari has huge potential because of its biodiversity. It is certainly a birding paradise. Arun informs, “Devalsari has a checklist of more than 175 species of birds including the Fire-Capped Tit, which comes from Africa, close to 200 species of moth and butterflies, and many animals such as the giant red flying squirrel, yellow-throated marten, black bears and leopards, to name a few.” Such mélange of wildlife only makes it all the more worthwhile to protect these forests.
Well, to put in simply, it wouldn’t have been possible for someone to develop an initiative like this if you are yourself not an admirer of nature. And this stems from the fact that Arun grew up in the mountains and started his training as a bee-keeper from the age of 8. He also won a national science project award for his approach toward bee-keeping. Arun is one of the most sought after experts on honey bee in the entire country and has also trained farmers in bee-keeping. Bee-keeping training programs have also been conducted, and it plays a very important part in the livelihood of farmers, since it can also tackle the problem of youth migrating from the villages and moving to cities. Although Arun has already provided a lot of young people with a source of income through bee-keeping and the sale of natural honey, he believes it is not enough.
Written by: Neellohit Banerjee
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