Maguri Motapung Beel is a wetland and lake located near Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Motapung Village of Tinsukhia district in Assam. Maguri Motapung Beel serves as a natural home to wildlife and provide a source of livelihood to the local communities.
On May 27, 2020, a fountain of crude oil polluted the waters of the wetland, and it caught fire on June 9. Conditions have recovered since then, and one highlight for the Maguri Beel wetland post the disaster has been the sighting of a Mandarin Duck in the lake for the first time in 118 years.
On 17th December, at around 5:00 PM we reached at Maguri beel. Our nature guide Palash has his own resort there. He also lives in a nearby village. After reaching there Palash took us to couple of nearby tea estates to search for brown hawk owl, oriental and collared scops owl. Eventually in the village itself we found hawk owl and in the front yard of Palash’s house we found quite a few collard-scops owl perching on trees.
Next day as early as 5:30 in morning after a short boat ride we reached at the other side of the Maguri beel to explore the grassland which is also part of Dibru-Saikhowa National Park. There we spotted hen harrier, endangered swamp grass babbler, golden cisticola and straited babbler. Then at around 7:00 AM we went to another side of the grassland across the water body near the Baghjan village. The village is also known as the victim of one of the recent environmental disasters. A blowout, explosion, and fire lasting more than five months, from 27th May to 15th November 2020 the natural gas well of Oil India Limited (OIL) at Baghjan in Assam’s Tinsukia district has resulted in the loss of an estimated 55 % of the biodiversity in the affected Dibru-Saikhowa landscape. As many as 1,632 hectares of wetland, 523 ha of grassland, 172 ha of area covering rivers and streams, and 213 ha of forest were damaged to varying degrees.
During our exploration in the grassland of Baghjan, we spotted the vulnerable and elusive marsh babbler. Besides that, we also spotted dusky babbler, chestnut capped babbler and puffed chested babbler among other regular birds.
In this whole trip of Dehing, Namdapha and Maguri Beel-Dibru-Saikhowa, I saw around 100 different birds and 80% of them were spotted for the first time ever in my life. That was why it was one of my memorable biodiversity and photography trips in India. Forests of Arunachal, indeed, have much more to offer than tigers and elephants. However, the Forest Department of this country was always sounded hopeless about the forests of Arunachal Pradesh for not sighting of tigers and elephants.
Based on an article written by Rupak Goswami in 1st August 2023 edition of EastMojo, “At Namdapha Tiger Reserve (NTR) in Arunachal Pradesh, none of the Range Officers stays inside the NTR area, and the responsibility of on-the-ground protection is largely delegated to the contingency staff, who are about 150 in number, out of which 50 are part of the tiger protection force. This sensitive landscape of 1985km2 with unique biodiversity, is managed by three ranges with a very meagre staff. The infrastructure for protection, like roads, patrolling paths, anti-poaching camps and motorcycles is very poor. The tiger reserve is hit hard by encroachment issues due to the increasing populations of the Lisus and other tribes. The Lisus are expanding their areas under cultivation and cardamom has a ready market as a cash crop. As of now, it is reported that there are eight Lisu villages with 311 families occupying the critical tiger habitat.”
As per this article, the presence of elephants of late has not been reported from within NTR. We know only one tiger was reported in 2022 NTCA tiger status report. The Management Effectiveness Evaluation Report (MEE) of the Namdapha Tiger Reserve said, “it is apprehended that probably the elephant population has adversely been impacted by hunting by tribes which might have found a ready market in the neighbouring countries”.
Although I said before that, forests of Arunachal have much more to offer than tigers and elephants, but one cannot deny that to protect this exquisite biodiversity, tigers and elephants are required too. Otherwise, human greed will eventually perish the biodiversity abundance of the “Land of the Rising Sun”.
Pseudo Ecotourism 