THE ONLY OPTIONS ARE BIRDWATCHING AND TOURISM IN NORTHERN INDIA.

The village in north India that is relying on birdwatching says that tourism is the only choice.

 

In Dalar village, Kamla Joshi is sitting outside her home peeling potatoes with her bare hands as the morning sun warms her skin. She is making a meal to celebrate Holi. The child being followed by her grandfather, the buffalo wandering aimlessly in the yard, and not to mention the vista of Trisul—a snow-covered Himalayan knife-edge—that rises over the oak trees and mustard flowers in Kamla's garden in the Kumaon Hills—keep me from helping out.

But I've just paused for a cup of hot chai, and before long, Hem, Kamla's husband, and I are leading the way as we hike through Dalar. We took a stop for tea in part so that Hem could introduce us to his family and the new guesthouse he is constructing in his birthplace using funds from his job as a guide with Village Ways in the Binsar wildlife sanctuary. A sanctuary for birds, this 50 sq km reserve in Uttarakhand, a wooded northern state bordering the Himalayas, is far off the beaten path.

With few other pathways for visitors who wish to stay inside these protected hills, Village Ways has spent over 20 years working with the local communities in Binsar to raise awareness of environmental protection, train tour guides like Hem, and generate employment possibilities for roughly 250 locals. Five communities inside the reserve have now been assisted by the corporation in setting up guesthouses for hikers that are operated by the community. All of them are only reachable on foot, are close to one another via hiking, and are battling for survival against urban migration. Two to six persons can go on multi-day hikes that are designed for their interests and levels of fitness.

Hem adds, pointing to the deserted homes and idle farming terraces in the valley around his home, "The younger generation don't want to stay." "Dalar used to have 20 households and be a bigger hamlet, but today there are just six families remaining." Hem responds immediately when I ask what can be done to stop the exodus: "Tourism is our only choice."

This year, Village Ways worked with the localities to establish a new yearly occasion—a birding festival—in the aim of attracting more tourists. With expert-led talks, hikes around the sanctuary's villages, and wildlife film screenings at Khali Estate, a former colonial summer home built in 1874 by Sir Henry Ramsay, a British commissioner of Kumaon, the event, which began this week and runs until 4 April, aims to draw bird enthusiasts from India and beyond. Today, the estate is owned by Manisha Pande, the Indian co-founder of Village Ways, and is the start and finish point for its hiking trips. That actually marks the end of the road. The hum of the outside world disappears in this place.

Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary was founded in 1988 in an effort to undo the harm caused by decades of forestry. The "green gold" oak trees, which play an important part in the forest ecology by absorbing water during the monsoon season and gradually releasing it during the dry season, are among its riches. More than 200 different kinds of birds, including eagles, parakeets, woodpeckers, forktails, and the enormous Himalayan vulture, as well as langur monkeys, Himalayan goral goats, martens, and leopards, make up the abundant wildlife.

With an emphasis on the communities of Dalar and Risal, my three-day mini-itinerary has been created to cover the region with the greatest concentration of birds. "In nature, birds are like skilled gardeners. Hem, who keeps his ears wide and his head always raised in search of animals, adds that they play a significant role in the forest because they disperse seeds and aid in pollination. Despite the tits, warblers, and flycatchers searching in the little pools of water along the stony riverbed, a blood-red carpet of rhododendron petals leads our path past a mass of jungle creepers as we descend into a deep cleft. Hem claims that this valley has been used for meditation for a very long time.

The sound of a barking deer is shortly followed by the sound of a goat herder and his white flock scrabbling up the valley hill. Hem says that the bark is a signal that a large cat is nearby. He murmurs, "Leopard warning call, the herder is aware. When we approach Risal, my base for the night, cupped between two steep-sided hills, he remarks, "Wildlife is a tremendous problem here. Look at this big vegetable field encircled by a high wall to keep off wild boar, deer, and porcupines.

As we ascend to the village guesthouse, we pass past farming terraces where windbreaks made of saris fastened to wooden poles protect crops like cabbage, fenugreek, and garlic. I look up and see an elderly man sitting on his back on the garden wall, much above me. When I strain my neck to take in the village's dizzying ascent, he makes the greeting gesture of namaste by pressing his hands together.

In an effort to draw in a wider range of hikers during the epidemic, Risal's community-owned guesthouse became one of the first in Binsar to update its rooms to include en suite bathrooms. There are just three immaculate pine bedrooms, along with a dining room and patio, in this charmingly whitewashed restored village home with green wooden shutters. Ishwar Joshi, a local historian who has authored a history of the area, joins me here over a glass of rhododendron juice to discuss the village's sluggish stumble into the twenty-first century.

He claims that the Risal village has been around for over 300 years, even though just five families are still there. Within the reserve, where contemporary Indian civilization has advanced, daily life is a delicate balancing act. Even then, not until 2012, was the community wired into the main system of energy. The valley is filled with solitude at night, and the only sounds I hear are the trembling trees.

The next day, a 6-kilometer journey that follows a river's serpentine curve while being bordered by agricultural terraces brings us temporarily outside the sanctuary's limits. We stop so that Hem may meet up with some carpenters who are cutting down pine trees in the forest, and we have tea with the driver who left me off at Khali Estate at the beginning of my journey. We watch as a crested serpent eagle soars close above the river that I wish I could reach out and use my breath to deflect it. To no success, a farmer across the street puts out a long yell in an attempt to frighten away a group of black-faced langur monkeys.

A few seconds later, a dog-sized alpha male is seen roaming through the dense grass. Hem chuckles, "Now he'll devour all the mustard seeds." I feel as though I've entered the soap opera of nature.

By afternoon, I had returned to Dalar. The guesthouse's location, on a flat hillside with a rough curtain of Himalayan mountains in the background, could not be more unlike from that of Risal. Holi festivities begin today, and Pippin Joshi, a distant cousin of Hem who is scheduled to be the guesthouse cleaner during my stay, receives visits from the majority of the village to say hello and catch up on gossip. As for Village Ways' community ownership concept, he calls it "excellent" since it ensures that everyone in the community receives fair salaries.

But the villages would like more guests. International tourism in India has yet to pick up again after Covid.