Foes become friends

March 25, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 02:09 am IST - Bali Island (West Bengal):

Called Friends of the Jungle, hunters of the Sunderbans have turned conservationists and help NGOs fight poaching

Poachers have turned conservationists in the Sunderbans, giving a ray of hope to conservationists for saving the world’s largest mangrove forest which is facing threat from rising sea level and climate change.

“My entire family, since the generation of my grandfather had been traditional hunters of the region. We used to earn our living by hunting wild animals and birds. But now for the last 15 years I am working for the cause of conservation of Sunderbans which is like my mother,” Anil Mistry, a 48-year-old resident of Bali Island in the Sunderbans told PTI.

The change came all of a sudden. A death of a deer haunted him. “A day in the late nineties I killed a mother deer. Her fawn s kept moving around her body and the sight changed my mind forever.”

“After I left poaching I convinced several of my other friends to work for conservation. Now we have a team of 12 people spread across Sunderbans and we work with different NGOs to fight against poaching and sensitise people about climate change,” said Mistry, who now works with Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).

The poachers-turned-conservationists are called ‘Bono Bondhu’ (Friends of the Jungle) as they work not only work for the protection of biodiversity but also for environment-friendly capacity building of the people of the Sunderbans.

Mistry and his friends’ intervention has saved many a tigers from being killed.

“Earlier, whenever a tiger strayed into human habitat it would be killed by villagers. But now people are sensitised lot. Thanks to the efforts of people like Mistry. No tiger which had strayed into a village has been killed since early 2002,” Honorary director of WPSI, S Banerjee said.PTI

A day in the late nineties I killed a mother deer. Her fawns kept moving around her body and the sight changed my mind forever.

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