Manas Tiger Team wins prestigious IRA-2021

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The "Manas Tigers Team", a mobile patrol team has won the prestigious International Ranger Award (IRA), 2021 for its unique to save tigers and increase the animal's population.

The IRA is developed collaboratively between the IUCN, WCPA, the International Ranger Federation, Global Wildlife Conservation, and Conservation Allies, which was created in 2020, with an aim to highlight and felicitate the extraordinary work that rangers do in protected and conserved areas worldwide.

In 2021, ten outstanding winners were selected from among 113 nominations across 43 countries. These nominations spanned 630 rangers: 68 individual nominations and 45 team nominations. In addition, 19 rangers and teams from around the world, which included the Manas Tiger mobile patrol team, have been recognised with special commendations for their contributions to protected and conserved areas. All the winners are rangers in protected and conserved areas and are residents of the countries in which they work.

The Manas Tigers Team was provided an award money of USD 3000. The award ceremony was held online on April 7 evening which was attended by the Manas Tigers Team, Field Director, Manas Tiger Reserve, Bibhuti Lahkar, Pronit Basumatary and Prosenjit Sheel from Aaranyak, Deba Dutta from WWF, and Jyotisman Deka, Field Biologist, Manas Tiger Reserve.

It is worth mentioning that the "Manas Tiger Teams" was provided capacity building trainings to patrol in the eastern range of the park (Bhuyanpara Range) which included patrol observations recording training, GPS usage, Map reading, Compass reading and Navigation, first aid training, emergency medical situation handing, crime scene handling, camera trap deployment training, snake bite management, snare combing tactics, drawing of wildlife crime offences and forensics by Aaranyak with support from other project partners, Forest Department BTC, Wildlife Conservation Trust, Panthera, IUCN-KfW and USFWS under the initiative Manas Tiger Conservation Project (MTCP).

The team has been nominated by Aaranyak for the award. Besides, Aaranyak has been regularly providing refreshers training on the above-mentioned topics to the team for smooth functioning. The team besides their core law enforcement duty has also carried out community engagement activities and conversation education activities in the fringe areas. Moreover, two members of the Manas Tigers team, Raphael Narzary and Raju Kherkatary were selected to participate in the World Ranger Congress'19, held at Chitwan, Nepal organized by International Ranger Federation (IRF) where they presented their work.

Similar to Manas Tigers Team, the Law Enforcement Monitoring team of Tiger Research and Conservation Division, Aaranyak also provided similar trainings for Manas Panthers Team, another patrol team based in the central range of Manas (Bansbari Range) which was formed by Forest Department, BTC after reviewing success of Manas Tigers team at Bhuyanpara.

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