Manas Maozigendri Jungle Camp
One of the most beautiful jungles in India, the Manas National Park is dense, dark and wild. It was declared a wildlife sanctuary on 1928. Since then it has been endowed with many more titles - it is a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, an elephant reserve, and a biosphere reserve. It is also the only national park in the entire State of Assam to be included under Project Tiger. Besides the elusive cat; the one-horned rhinoceros, the Asiatic Wild Buffalo and the Gangetic River Dolphin are the main attractions of the park. Very different from the jungles of the plains – the vegetation and especially the hornbills, give this national park a strange exotic feel.
Manas Maozigendri jungle camp offers one of the most authentic wilderness experiences. The camp is set up at the eastern border of the park, in a plantation meant for rearing the famous muga silk of Assam. The project runs various conservation programs, cultural self-help groups, handicraft self-help groups and conducts regular patrolling inside the park in association with the Forest department to stop poaching and cattle grazing. They also provide a radical homestay experience with the Bodos in the nearby villages where guest houses are available for about 20 people.
An ethnic group, speaking the bodo language, inhabits this area of Assam encompassing the foothills of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh- Bodoland is what it is called. Long years of struggle for the acknowledgment of the Bodo identity within India had put many scars to this nature paradise. After the Manas National Park was listed on ‘The world heritage in Danger’, the Bodo youth decided to do something to wash away this shameful stamp on their homeland. They then developed an ecotourism model as a sustainable form of resource usage.
Volunteers from MMES (Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Society) run the camp and give you firsthand access to a well of information and stories about the restoration of the park and the work they do. At night the dining room cum common area is the place to be, as most of the volunteers gather here before going on patrol. Lots of information and great tales are shared in the darkness of the night whilst the sound of the Jungle makes for a prefect soundtrack.
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