Forest Department-Community partnership to improve protection of Western Hoolock Gibbons (Hoolock hoolock) in Jeypore RF, India - Phase VI

The Jeypore Range of Dibrugarh Forest Division has a shortage of the manpower required to protect this area, even though infrastructure, i.e., guard posts exist at strategic locations.

The Roving Gibbon Patrol Units (RGPUs) has the following features: the active involvement of local community members in forest patrolling widely held not to be a workable model in India; organized anti-poaching patrolling in an area that is largely a Reserve Forest and not yet fully a Protected Area or Tiger Reserve; the flexibility of the units to move between camps as necessary and in response to changing threat perceptions; the first project in Northeast India to use SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) patrols developed by the Global Tiger Initiative for enhanced law enforcement monitoring.

The project objectives are to: (1) Continue the operations of the three roving gibbon and wildlife patrol units comprising of 3 community members and headed by a forest guard in each group; and, (2) Implement SMART patrolling protocols; systematically record patrol details and produce monthly reports; plan future patrols using these reports.