Threat to survival

Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary in Assam faces ecological challenges as railway electrification and hydrocarbon exploration endanger its fragile biodiversity

- SANDIPAN TALUKDAR JOHRAT, ASSAM

THE HOOLOCK gibbon, one of humans' closest evolutionary cousins, clings to survival in a fragile habitat in India-a 21km wildlife sanctuary in Assam's Jorhat district named after the ape itself. Over the past century, human encroachment has steadily tightened its grip on the sanctuary, which is home to over 219 bird species, six primate species (including the world's largest troop of stump-tailed macaques) and much more. A railway track, laid in 1887, cuts through its core, while "tea gardens and human settlements" encircle its "semi-evergreen forests and evergreen patches", as described by the state's forest department website.

Remarkably, the Hoolock gibbon, India's sole ape species, has managed to endure. A 2019 census conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, recorded 125 individuals within the sanctuary. However, conservationists are sounding the alarm over two projects sanctioned in 2024: exploratory hydrocarbon mining approved just 13 km south of the sanctuary and the electrification of the railway track running through it.

These projects could upend the delicate balance of the vulnerable ecosystem, jeopardising the future of the primate and the other biodiversity in and around the sanctuary.

IN SEARCH OF OIL