Bringing Back Manas

(d) Grasses, Cane and medicinal plants
Grasses, canes and medicinal plants were also used
by the locals but in very small quantities. Cane was
collected and used only by the people of Kokrajhar
district because of its availability in the district.
(e) Value of extracted forest resources
The total value derived from forest produce
averaged Rs 1322 per family/month excluding the value
of wildmeat which accounted for Rs 432/-.
Sources of energy
Most of the energy needs for cooking are met by
fuel wood. About 96% of the people used fuel wood as
major source of energy along with other sources. The
other major sources of energy used are kerosene oil
(70%), electricity (38%) and LPG (32%). Bio-gas or cow
dung was hardly used by people for this purpose. In
Udalguri, Baksa and Chirang districts, almost all
people used fuel wood. Along with fuelwood,
kerosene was reported to be used by 100% of the
people in Udalguri, 66.7% in Baksa and Chirang each
and 54.5% of people in Kokrajhar.
Conclusion
Large-scale deforestation is the most common
problem throughout India. The extent of forest cover in
India has more or less stabilized after 1980 due to ban on
clear felling. However, forest degradation and smallscale
deforestations at local levels still continue. The
BTC area is not exception. Large-scale destruction of the
forested area has occurred especially in the southern
parts of the region, where major settlements lie. Most of
the forest cover is now left in the northern areas adjacent
to the international border with Bhutan. Most protected
areas in the region also lie in the northern parts.
Though majority of the people have access to
alternate sources of energy (70% of the people have an
access to kerosene followed by 38% to electricity, 32%
to L.P.G and only 2% to bio-gas), 98.84% of the
total people fully depend on firewood. This is because
of low price of fire wood, if purchased from the
market, or as was observed during the survey
extracted free of cost from the protected forest. Fire
wood still seems to be the only choice for cooking
because it is a free or a very cheap resource. On an
average every month, each household in BTC
required about 137 kg of fire wood, most which comes
from the forest. This translates to over 720,000 metric
tonnes per year of firewood requirement for the entire
population of BTC. These are conservative estimates
because the suggested requirement of 137 kg of fire
wood per family every month, appears rather low.
Therefore even with these estimates and considering
that this is only for firewood, there is immense
pressure on the forests. Steps need to be taken now to
secure the remaining forest patches, found mainly in
the Kokrajhar district.
Besides fire wood, large-scale destruction of the
forest area is going because of over exploitation of
timber. About 85.36% of the total people in BTC area was
involved in extraction of timber from the forest and in
an average 2.16 cft amount of timber are extracted by
each family. Almost 50% of the total people extract
timber directly from the forest.
Fig.57& 58 Forest resources extraction by residents of fringe villages, Manas National Park
64 Bringing Back Manas