Environmentalists are known to be the harbingers of bad news. This time it's good news! Having returned from the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in this great country of ours inhabited by one billion people - wild animals are often left struggling for survival. But on this trip I realise for the first time how saving even a tiny patch of forest can save over seven species of endangered monkeys from extinction. Few know that India is home not just to the rhesus monkey or the langur but endangered and lesser-known monkey species like the stump-tailed macaque, the nocturnal shy slow loris and the only member of the ape family - the gibbon, all thriving in tiny forest patches.
My first stop on the search for India's most elusive and endangered primate species is in Jorhat, Assam. Its 20 sq kms of forest land enclosed on all sides with tea plantations -- those used to working in an African conservation landscape would find the scale of operation laughable, and yet it's a crucial habitat. I meet Dilip Chetry - with his neatly-trimmed moustache and cropped hair people often mistake him for an Army officer in insurgency-ridden North-East India. Famous locally as the 'monkey doctor', Dilip is actually a primatologist who came to study primates here in Jorhat for his PhD thesis. And when he finished his research, he decided to go back to the forest that gave him his degree and give something back. In 1997, the Assam government declared Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary - the only sanctuary of its kind in the country dedicated to the gibbons. It also has other endangered species - some I have never seen before in my life like the stump-tailed macaque, the capped langur and pig-tailed macaque.
Shooting monkeys can be a pain in the neck - there are occupational hazards to studying primates. For hours you walk around the forest feeling vertically challenged - you are on the ground while your study species are high up on the canopy that is almost 100 feet high. My producer, cameraperson and I walk around for the most time craning the limited bones in our neck wishing we were giraffes. Within one hour of reaching the sanctuary we have our first glimpse of our first animal - it's a jet black gibbon- a young sub-adult Dilip informs us as he peers through his binoculars. As we stare up at the animal (but not for long as our necks give way after a point) he's busy devouring his morning breakfast. For primates the mornings are a hectic time of foraging as they have spent the whole night on the tree tops without food. While we try to keep our voices down, this animal ain't going nowhere. Both his arms are busy. Like a commuter holding on to the bus railing with one hand he holds on to a tree branch, with the other he extends his long limbs to pick fruits. And then it's time for some acrobatics. It's like watching a circus. He swings from tree to tree and the camera is finding it difficult to keep track of his fast movement. But we are already distracted- up ahead in the distance in a lower part of the canopy are the pig-tailed macaques. It's my first glimpse of the species and I am excited. Pig-tailed macaques may look similar to their cousins, the rhesus monkey, except for their tail - which looks like a pig's tail.
The day is rewarding. We have been shooting through the day following the troop all around - but I can see why this tiny pocket of forest is in trouble. A railway line cuts right through the canopy, confining the monkeys on one side. Scientists predict that if the isolated patches of forests are not joined together, endangered primates like the gibbon will be wiped out due to inbreeding. Species need to migrate out of the forest, but across the North-East, the primates are being stuck in isolated pockets. Dilip has already started work to join the forest on both sides by planting trees on both sides of the railway track. Once they have grown taller, the canopy will be joined and animals can cross from one side to another. He's also started work with the local community distributing bio-gas units so that people don't have to enter the sanctuary to extract wood.
The next day having finished our shoot in Assam, it's time to say goodbye to the animals. As I stare up at a gibbon plucking his morning meal, I make a solemn resolve that his story and of his family must be told and told well, once I reach Delhi. The primates of the North-East need active conservation interventions but first more people must know about them.
My next stop is to another hotspot. We are now moving to Tripura to film the state animal or the phayres leaf monkey or the chashma bandar (spectacled langur) as the locals call it. I am intrigued how did this tiny corner of the country get so much biodiversity?
When we reach Agartala, the town seems quite the same as any town in north India. It's when we venture out that the profile changes. Next morning, at the crack of dawn we drive to the Sepaijhala Wildlife Sanctuary - once again small is beautiful. It's a National park that is all of 18 sq kms but it's home to the clouded leopard, and eight species of primates - one of them being the spectacled langur. My first sighting of them is intriguing - once again I strain my neck to search for them in the green canopy - and 30 feet above there they are. They are black and furry - and it's the eyes that stand out- they really do look like old grandma peering at us through her white spectacles. For a moment the troop pauses and stares down at us. We must seem weird to them. A short pause - once they are sure we are not a threat - it's time to go back to foraging for leaves and bamboo shoots.
A K Gupta, the Chief Wildlife Warden of Tripura, has been working for the last 18 years with the leaf monkeys. He's studied at Cambridge and is not your typical government officer. He is a walking encyclopaedia on the leaf monkey and has initiated unique community projects to involve people in the protection of the forests. I meet Fauzia, a member of an all-women's patrol team that protects the forest. Fauzia lives in the edge of the sanctuary and was instrumental in dousing a forest fire for which she was rewarded. I also meet members of the Sepaijhala Forest Band comprising people from the village nearby who were given money from the forest department to start a music band that plays at birthdays and festivals. Such schemes give the local people an additional income and creates less hostility with a department which is otherwise viewed with suspicion.
As I leave the forests of North-East India - there is the realization and a happy one - conserving small patches of forests so rich in species can be redeeming for conservation. The challenge now lies in joining these tiny patches to ensure long-term species survival.
(Catch the last episode of Citizens for Earth on India's most endangered primates today on CNN-IBN at 9:30 pm)