Located almost in the middle of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh is the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary, through which a road is being constructed for increased surveillance of the contentious border with China.
The road, which is being built from the entrance of the sanctuary, will cover a distance of around 30 kilometres to the Brungu Base Camp of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). The project is being executed by the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited, with the assistance of local firms.
The sanctuary will eventually be linked to the highway that connects Dibang Valley’s district headquarters of Anini to Roing in Lower Dibang Valley.
An engineer engaged with the scheme lamented that the pace of the work was extremely slow and expensive. “Only 2 -3 kilometres can be completed in a month, which gets even more sluggish during the rainy season. The price of all the items required for the construction escalates sharply by the time they reach this spot,” he said.
Hectic Construction Activity
The Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary, spread over 4,149 sq km, is one among the 11 wildlife sanctuaries in Arunachal Pradesh.
Last December, hectic construction activity was noticed when this correspondent travelled through the sanctuary with a group of hikers. The first sight for the group was of two daily wagers ferrying stones from inside the sanctuary to a spot outside, where a small makeshift camp had been erected. Near the camp, facilities were created for preparing the ingredients for the concrete structures inside the sanctuary.
Only a small stretch of around 3-4 kilometres of the road was found to be concrete inside the sanctuary, which was interspersed with concrete culverts at regular intervals. The rest of the road up to a distance of around 10 kilometres was found smoothened with sand and gravel.
Heaps of chopped trees and boulders, gathered possibly from the bank of the Dri river flowing through the sanctuary or from inside the forest, were observed at some locations. Stone crushers and other heavy equipment required for the project were noticed at a spot that was also the temporary office of the construction firm.
How Tensions With China Escalated After Galwan
The road through the sanctuary is part of the overall emphasis by the government to construct more roads along the country’s border with China.
Following the Galwan incident, the government has sanctioned 32 roads and an equal number of helipads along the border with China, which follows earlier projects to develop the infrastructure in certain vulnerable zones.
Last year, the National Board of Wildlife (NWBL) had given its clearance for roads inside the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary in Ladakh, citing strategic reasons. The Changthang sanctuary is home to the Tibetan wild ass, black cranes, and other rare animal species.
Arunachal Pradesh has witnessed repeated intrusions by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) over the past several years. A total of six ‘disputed’ and four ‘sensitive’ zones exist along the entire border in Arunachal Pradesh.
A senior official with the Arunachal Pradesh government said that a ‘sensitive’ area called Fishtail-1 falls in the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary. He justified the road through the sanctuary by saying that the situation along the border in the twin districts of Upper Subansiri and Dibang Valley was ‘alarming’. The official’s opinion has been echoed by politicians and locals who allege that a large chunk of territory in Arunachal Pradesh has been occupied by China.
The Ecological Importance of Dibang Valley
According to the state government’s portal, there are as many as 156 mammal species and more than 137 bird species in the sanctuary, ranging from Red Panda and Musk Deer to the Himalayan Black Bear, besides a wide variety of birds belonging mainly to the pheasant species. In 2020, a report compiled by the Wildlife Institute of India said that an estimated 29 tigers were present in the Dibang-Kamlang-Namdapha zone of the hill state.
The sanctuary is part of the Dehang-Dibang biosphere reserve spanning an area of 5112 sq km, which is one of the 18 such notified sites in the country and an ‘important bird area’ among 467 such spots. The Dibang Valley also forms part of the Eastern Himalaya Global Biodiversity Hotspot, one of the 36 such hotspots across the world comprising 60 per cent of the planet’s faunal diversity.
However, nothing is known about the number of trees that will be chopped in the sanctuary for the project, or whether the government has firmed up any plan to compensate for the loss through afforestation. A senior official in the district was unable to provide information on the project when he was contacted in Anini.
An RTI application filed with the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited soliciting information on the project was denied. The reply said that information could not be provided since it related to ‘Indo China Border Roads as per Section 8 (i) of RTI Act 2005’.
Two Power Projects Have Already Endangered Ecology
The construction of the road through the sanctuary will add to the concerns of environmentalists, who are already alarmed over the proposed construction of two large concrete gravity dams at Etalin in Dibang Valley.
The Etalin Hydro-Electric Project entails two dams on the Dri and Tangon rivers, besides diversion tunnels, penstock pipes, an underground powerhouse, a road network of over 50 km and four new bridges. There are reports claiming that 2.7 lakh trees would be felled for the project.
The latest in the barrage of protests against the dams in the border state was a graffiti by Assam-based artist and activist Neelim Mahanta, which he painted on the 'Wall of Harmony' in Itanagar. He has been arrested by Arunachal Pradesh police from his residence in Lakhimpur along with activist Ebo Mili, and later released on bail.
The Environment Ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) has deferred its decision on the Etalin project and it has asked the Power Ministry to comment on whether the project is viable. The FAC has also directed the state government to submit a cost-benefit analysis of the project.
(Rajeev Bhattacharyya is a senior journalist in Guwahati. Views expressed are personal.)
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