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OFFTRACK:
HARIKE,
PUNJAB
Weed
War
It took a military operation to halt the march of the water hyacinth
By Ramesh
Vinayak
As
the morning sun filters through the thick blanket of fog over the wetland,
the lake's crystal clear stretches come alive with a myriad migratory
birds-chiefly coots, widgeon, common teal, red crested pochards, shoveller
and brahminy ducks-landing in numbers not seen in the recent past. There
are over 80,000 of them, their presence almost an ornithological miracle.
And it took the Indian Army, no less, to bring about that miracle.
 |
| An army
team tugs away at a floating island of hyacinth in Harike |
Just last
winter, the Harike lake in Punjab was a sprawling green bed of hyacinth,
with barely 10 per cent of its water surface open for migratory ducks.
The weed had been squeezing the life out of the 41-sq km lake for some
time. Efforts by the Wildlife Department to contain the situation were
proving too little, too late. In May last year the army took up the battle
to preserve the wetland.
But tackling
the hyacinth-2.7 lakh tonnes or 50,000 vehicle loads of it-was a task
that put even the army's resources to test. "There was no precedence
to follow in such a large-scale hyacinth removal operation" says
Colonel H.S. Brar, head of the "Harike Task Force" that executed
the project as part of Operation Sahyog with a core of 80 men drawn from
3 Mahar, 118 Engineers and 607 EME. There was a lot of planning. Major-General
Lalit Tewari, GOC, 7 Infantry Division, surfed 4,000 websites on the Internet
to learn about the hyacinth. The task force was able to make headway only
after a series of trial-and-error methods. Using indigenously fabricated
rakers, cutters, winches and booms, the army removed the hyacinth in huge
chunks. A study of the water currents helped in flushing out massive floating
weed mats, segregated with cutters fitted on boats, during the monsoon.
What bolstered the operation was "booming"-a technique employing
ropes and empty drums to stop the hyacinth floating into the cleared stretches.
When the
project was suspended in October 2000 to coincide with the beginning of
the migratory season, the army had removed 1.25 lakh tonnes of weed from
an 8 sq km area-far more than its initial target of clearing 1 sq km.
And the birds are back in almost double the number compared to last winter.
On the axis
of the Western Himalayas and the Indus-Sutlej river system-the routes
that most migratory birds follow- Harike is home to 363 species and breeding
ground for 120 of them. A Swiss bird watcher had reported several rare
species of birds between 1991 and 1995 that gave a major boost to Harike's
status and ranked it a close second to the premier Bharatpur Sanctuary.
Harike has
long been a low priority for the government's poorly funded conservation
efforts. Hyacinth isn't the only problem plaguing the wetland. A far more
serious threat is rampant encroachment for cultivation by farmers. The
wetland has also been the victim of multiplicity of government departments
handling it as these bodies are more involved in turf wars than in preserving
the habitat. "Harike has been a no man's land for preservation,"
admits Kulbir Singh Sidhu, deputy commissioner of Ferozepore.
To get around
the mismanagement arising from the number of agencies involved, the Punjab
Government recently set up a wetland authority that would integrate and
control the departments entrusted with Harike's preservation. "The
underlying strategy is to manage the wetland in a corporate-like culture
of accountability," says Rajan Kashyap, secretary, Council for Science
and Technology. In forming a new body, the state Government is also eyeing
a Rs 100-crore World Bank aid for Harike's restoration.
But whether
the state Wildlife Department is able to sustain the fight against hyacinth
after the army relinquishes control of the project this April is still
a moot question. "What Harike needs is a civil preservation body
with a military culture," says Lt-General Surjit Singh, GOC-in-C,
Western Command, who has suggested raising an eco-battalion comprising
ex-servicemen from the areas around the wetland. Unless this is done,
when the army pulls out Harike may again be on a wing and a prayer.
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