Rewilding journey in Chamba

Enamoured by the trees, wildlife and forests surrounding his Chamba Valley home since a young age, after obtaining a Master’s degree in Botany in 2011, Himachal Pradesh resident Vishal Ahuja followed his passion for conservation and joined a study on the distribution of the Himalayan grey langur (also known as the Chamba sacred langur).

- Neyi Jamoh

The project involved mapping human-wildlife conflict zones, and documenting conservation challenges in Chamba. This study, which was conducted in 2012 by Vishal and his team under the guidance of Dr. Sanjay Molur (Executive Director, Zoo Outreach Organisation; Founder Secretary, Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society, Coimbatore), heralded the birth of a rewilding project aimed at fostering human-animal coexistence in the Chamba Valley.

Ground work

A majority of communities living on the fringes of the Kalatop Khajjiar Wildlife Sanctuary in Himachal Pradesh are farmers. Over the years, with the extension of farming areas, uncontrolled grazing by cattle, and unsustainable use of forest-based resources, coupled with climate change, the pine-oak mixed forests near villages were severely degraded.

In 2014, a followup study in 12 highly conflict-prone villages surrounding the wildlife sanctuary helped the team understand local people's perception of crop depredation and loss, and helped document possible ways to mitigate human-animal conflict (as suggested by locals). Two related studies conducted by Vishal in February-March in 43 villages and in 53 villages in November-December in 2016 revealed that wildlife such as Himalayan black bears, rhesus macaques, Himalayan grey langurs, and porcupines caused farmers to lose a major portion (57.17 per cent) of their expected yield to depredation, a fact that explains the presence of several abandoned terraced farms.