THE FIRE WITHIN

HOW A MESSAGING GROUP BECAME A LIFELINE FOR FORESTS— AND A FRONTLINE FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION IN THE HIMALAYAS

- SHREYA CHEEMA

ONE AFTERNOON, I NOTICED SMOKE FROM OUR camp. My mother and I rushed to control the fire. Two years later, it happened again, right next to our property. My husband and I, and our staff, fought the fire until 1 am," says Tanuja Sah, pointing towards the dense patch of green where it all happened, as we walk through the forest. On our way, she points at the burnt leaves and shows me what were once tall tree trunks, now charred and razed to the ground.

“When we moved here to open our boutique stay, Nayalap, we did not know about the forest teams and the WhatsApp action group, Jungle Ke Dost, that is used to report fires and mobilise the local community for help,” she says. This group, which Sah and 800 others now belong to, was started by Gajendra Pathak, also a guesthouse owner and pharmacist in Shitlakhet, Uttarakhand.

While the social media app formally became a forum for reporting fire breakouts in 2020, the group has been active for two decades. Its origin dates to 2004, when the Kosi River, which supplies water to Almora, dried up in the summer months. This disrupted the water supply to the town, and the springs also dried up, urging Pathak to take matters into his own hands.

“The springs used to be full enough to bathe in during summer-seeing them dry was deeply disturbing. At the time, we were young, but we observed the environmental changes—dense forests of banj (oak), buransh (rhododendron), and kafal (bayberry) had been replaced by chir pine. We realised that deforestation and forest fires were the reasons behind the drying up of water sources.”