Visitors and tourists were just about trickling in when we visited Manas National Park, the Raimona National Park, and Kakaijana Park in western Assam in late October.

The safari tour drivers, forest guides, homestays and hotel staff are back and eagerly awaiting tourists to flock in.

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“From November we will start being fully occupied,” they told us. A safari driver at Manas National Park said that during peak season he gets to drive into the forest at least three rounds each day.

No wonder that local communities eagerly await these winter months when wildlife enthusiasts and tourists throng the national parks and sanctuaries. Local livelihoods largely depend directly or indirectly on the tourist traffic to these wildlife reserves.

Whether it is local cabs, hotels, roadside eateries, or nature guides, it is local communities who are the big stakeholders in the tourist economy and, in turn, for the conservation of forests.

The peak season extends till February-March. Indeed, in the thick Manas forests, the real season is after January, when the burning of grasses is done.

With the outset of winter and the year’s heavy monsoon over, Assam’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries are only beginning to buzz with activity.

“By February, the landscape is stark and ready to show wildlife more clearly,” says a guide at the Pugmark Resort, one of the several well-designed resorts catering to Manas National Park.

At the reopening of the Manas National Park for the year’s season in September, state tourism minister Jayanta Malla Baruah was reported to have said that Assam is gearing up and ready to increase tourist footfall for the coming 2024-2025 season.

“With its stunning landscapes and diverse wildlife, we expect a significant surge in tourists this season. This will not only enhance ecotourism but also contribute positively to the local economy,” Baruah posted on his social media X account.

Overall, in 2023-2024, the tourist footfall in Assam comes to nearly one crore. This was stated by state chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on this year’s World Tourism Day. The CM posted on his X account, “Assam’s tourism sector is booming and attracting people from far and wide. Due to improved law and order and infrastructure, lakhs of people have visited our state. The recovery post-Covid has also been phenomenal, as we saw a footfall of nearly 1 crore tourists.”

While Assam’s Kaziranga remains the top destination, Manas National Park in Bodoland autonomous districts saw as many as 52,394 domestic visitors and 1,453 foreign tourists between April 2023 and March 2024. Raimona National Park recorded 3485 domestic and 6 foreign tourists in the same period.

Kaziranga’s popularity attracts lots of domestic tourists no sooner than the park opened on 1 October. But in western Assam and Bodoland’s wildlife reserves, tourist traffic is still sparse, ironically due to the thick forests preventing clear visibility.

“Which is why there is a dire need to have grasslands and open more routes for tourists,” say local tourist operators.

Management of national parks is not an easy task. For instance, the Raimona National Park, which is a relatively new national park, was a collective effort of the communities in collaboration with the forest department. It was declared a national park only in 2021 by the Assam government.

Known for the presence of the elusive clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), elephants, and the Gee’s golden langurs (Trachypithecus geei), it is spread over an area of 422 sq. km in the Kokrajhar district under the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), combining parts of the Ripu-Chirang reserve forest.

Community contribution and commitment are crucial in the protection and management of wildlife parks and sanctuaries, particularly in northeastern states. Given its vulnerability to poaching and the traditional practice of hunting.

Wildlife enthusiast and award-winning tourist guide Bidinta Basumatary told us that before the park was declared “protected” and a sanctuary, a lot of human activity happened in the vicinity. An ideal scenic beauty bordering Bhutan, the quiet and clear Hel River flowing down was a perfect picnic and entertainment spot.

When young people and visitors at the scenic spot created a disturbance with loud music and plastic waste on the bank of the river, it became not only a domestic problem but an international issue as well.

“Bhutan objected, and the disturbance was stopped immediately,” said Basumatary. He said noise pollution poses a danger to the lives of the flora and fauna, and the human activity caused a problem of inorganic waste at the pristine location.

Since these parks share a border with Bhutan, Manas and other parks in west Assam have border outposts of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), which is in charge of India’s borders with Nepal and Bhutan. Traditional wildlife hunting has been successfully stopped, with communities inhabiting the area themselves coming out to protect the park.

“These parks in the Bodoland area are a treasure house of flora and fauna, and they need to be known widely,” says Jayanta Sarmah, director and council head of the department of tourism under the Bodoland Territorial Council.

Elsewhere in western Assam, another remarkable community initiative was seen in the Kakaijana Park. Located at the Kakaijana village in the Bongaigaon district in Assam, the forest reserve spreads over 17.24 sq. km and is popularly known for the Gee’s golden langur. Youth of the village serve as volunteer guides in the forest. The reserved forest was protected and conserved with the dedicated support of the community.

Declared a reserved forest in 1966, the Rabha tribal village elders came together and formed a committee to protect and preserve the forest and its biodiversity. The management of the reserved forest was also under the village committee. Today, there are tours for local schoolchildren alongside visits to an ancient Shiva temple and an introduction to Rabha culture and food.

While the wildlife sanctuaries and nature parks are attracting visitors and tourists, there are challenges in several areas. For one, the absence of accommodations in these rural areas. Even though few are available, these are places that not many could afford.

There is a need to promote more affordable homestays, felt by some budget tourists. This could help more community involvement and stimulate the local economy of the villages. However, credit is hard to come by, and there is only moderate government help, said some villagers.

The vision for tourist attractions and tourism at large should not be limited only to high-end hotels but more to involve the locals in terms of employing them as guides, they felt. Also encouraging and promoting more affordable hotels and homestays. Domestic tourism could be one of the target areas to enhance interstate interactions and integration. The dividends then could be through the year.

The writer is a freelance contributor