Guwahati, October 6
Dadara is not just another village in Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley. Located about one-hour drive away from Guwahati, the village boasts of a rare tree-top nesting colony of the endangered Greater Adjutant Storks.

The colony of the rare Greater Adjutant Storks at Dadara village has become a sort of role model for conservation of rare avian species with community participation, thanks to a sustained programme of the Aaranyak, a society for bio-diversity conservation.

“Out of the 20 stork species surviving on Earth, the Greater Adjutant is the rarest having a global population of less than 1,000. Its habitats are found only in a few places of Cambodia, Bihar and Assam,” said Aaranyak researcher Purnima Devi Barman.

The Brahmaputra Valley of Assam accounts for about 85 per cent (over 800 units) of the global population of the bird and is considered a major stronghold of the species. Habitat destruction is found to be a primary cause for the declining population of the stork.

Being a colonial bird, the Greater Adjutant Stork breeds in colonies atop tall trees grown on private land. The survival of these birds mainly depends on the willingness and support of the nest tree owners towards the conservation effort.

“It is apparent that but for the cooperation from private tree owners of Dadara and the villagers, the conservation of the Greater Adjutant stork would have been impossible,” the researcher said.

The Aaranyak has received Future Conservationist Award this year for the project titled "Conservation initiatives for Greater Adjutant stork in Assam, India". The project is supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme, UK, which is a partnership of Birdlife International, Fauna and Flora International, Conservation International and Wildlife Conservation society.

The residents of Dadara, who once used to hate the stork for scavenging and making their campus dirty, now take pride that their village is known globally only because of this bird — which is a major success of the project.

The villagers, after being made aware of the scavenging bird’s importance to the ecology, are now cooperating in an exemplary manner to help save the rare bird. Such is their love for the bird that weavers of the village have even started weaving motifs of the bird on their handloom products.