FAITH FACTOR: Villagers TKE an oath in the waters of the Chilika to give up poaching

It's unlikely that a faceless village with narrow dirt tracks and open sewerage can attract visitors, but Soran in Khurda district always has. One reason is that it barely goes unnoticed lying as it does on the banks of the idyllic Chilika, the biggest brackish-water lake in India. Visitors to the lake invariably end up taking a stroll through Soran to get a feel of the rural neighbourhood. That wasn't bad, but among the visitors there were many who had come for entirely different reasons.

Their trips were sinister to say the least. Driving into the village they would park their vehicles at discreet corners and then walk around striking hasty bargains. Their objects of desire: the variety of birds, many of them dead, displayed in the verandahs of nondescript homes or in the courtyards at the back. Some desired them to keep as pets. Others eyed the feathered species for a unique meal. For the residents of Soran and other villages who poached on the birds and sold them, it meant booming business.

Not anymore. Soran's rapidly increasing trade in birds was worrying enough for conservationists to press the panic buttons. They knew they had to sit down and begin organising themselves to save the birds. "The challenge was as much to preserve the lives of the visiting birds as the reputation of Chilika as an idyllic lake," explains Nandkishore Bhujbal of Wild Orissa, an NGO, which along with the Chilika Development Authority (CDA), has been going all out to wean away the hunters from the birds.

Around 15 lakh birds comprising around 156 species fly to the lake annually. Besides the water fowl and the wader birds, the winged visitors include flamingos, rails and coots. The congregation in the expanse of the 800 sq km lake also includes such rare birds as the spokebilled sandpiper and the Asian dowitcher. Flying in from as far as Siberia, Manchuria and the sub-Himalayan region, the birds came in search of food, nest and rest. But poaching turned Chilika into one of their biggest graveyards. "The lake was becoming a dangerous place for the birds," admits Ajit Patnaik, CDA's chief executive.

Of all the birds that flew in at the outset of the migration season, a sizeable number never made the return journey. By conservative estimates, no less than one lakh birds fell prey to hunters in a year at Chilika. But the activists were determined to check that. They began by working on building consensus among those in the surrounding localities. With as many as 122 villages in the neighbourhood, it was an uphill task. Soran, being the biggest poachers' den, proved most difficult.

It meant asking the villagers to give up their trade, one that brought in quick money. As Kishore Bahera, a local, explains, "With birds just waiting to be caught, earning had never been this easy before." Knowing this well, the activists had to tread carefully. They knew that unless they offered an alternative means of livelihood, there would be few takers for their plan. Accordingly, the CDA arranged for soft loans of Rs 5,000 with a minimal interest rate of 4 per cent.

To make things easier, they played upon the villagers' religious beliefs, persuading them to bathe in the lake and take an oath in the name of Kalijai, the local deity, not to harm the birds. The perseverance gradually paid off. More and more villagers volunteered to take the oath and soon bird protection committees, comprising erstwhile poachers, sprang up in Soran and elsewhere.

Leaving the birds alone, the villagers started looking at other sources of income. Suleman Khan, for instance, bought a fishing net with his Rs 5,000 while Akbar Khan invested the loan in a poultry farm. They probably earn less money than what they did but they make a decent living. Earlier they were looked down upon as poachers and the police were always on their trail. Today they chase the odd villager who still poaches. Recently, the villagers of Soran handed down a stern punishment to one Ukil Khan for trapping birds. He was made to do 100 sit-ups in full view of the public, not to mention the thousands of birds which have already begun to arrive in Chilika this year, a month ahead of normal time. For the conservationists, nothing could have provided a more fitting finale to their efforts than this.