In the gathering darkness of the fast-falling evening in the valley, a man appears with a monkey in one hand and a strange gun in the other.
As he climbs up the slope from the Sangu river and steps into the Tindu market square, people gather around him, appreciative of his prize. A single bullet had pierced the rhesus monkey’s chest and come out his neck. Blood still drips down its ruddy coat.
The man displays the monkey for us to take snaps. His gun is primitive it is hard to believe that it can actually kill anything. A normal water pipe tied to a heavy stump of wood carved in the fashion of the stock of a shotgun. It is front-loaded you just thrust the gunpowder inside and put in a lead ball.
Tindu is a six-hour boat ride from Thanchi, the last outpost of Bandarban where any Bangalee people live. After that is wilderness just a fast-flowing river flushing through hills. Here, only hill people live; mainly Marmas.
Huge boulders block the river’s way at bends, and the water roils. On the undulating hills, the real trees tall and straight are few. Most have been replaced by shrubs or slash-and-burn cultivation.
Through such landscapes we row another three hours to reach Remacri, a Marma neighbourhood further upstream. In the evening, a group of hunters appear with a barking deer. The villagers gather around, appreciating the kill.
In this harsh land, life is difficult but certainly not so desperate as to force these hunters to turn to wild animals. Both had chickens and pigs at home. One has a shop in the market. Still, they hunt regularly.
The Remacri man laughed when we asked him why he hunts when he does not have any shortage of protein sources. After all, life is harsh in these remote hills.
“My father did it. I do it too,” he said in broken Bangla.
Although rations have arrived and farming has taken a timid root, tradition and instincts persist. The laws prohibiting hunting make no sense in these villages. People just laugh when told a law makes it punishable to kill wildlife.
At Remacri, they said they kill one or two deer every day once the Jhum harvest is over. Monkeys, pheasants and red jungle fowl are hunted regularly. There is no check or balance. No one has any idea what the animal population is of deer, monkeys or anything for that matter. No one knows if any population is at a harvestable level.
But signs suggested the numbers are few. All along this nine-hour journey, we sighted only a single pair of cotton pigmy goose. They surely were new to this place to have escaped the eyes of the Marmas. There were a lot of wagtails and a few river lapwings, too. But they are not worth eating. We walked 22 kilometres to and around Nafakhum, yet found no hoof prints of deer or signs of monkeys.
Only at Tindu did we hear a deer at dusk, its call lonely and mysterious, as mists swirled around the hills in a mystical way. And at Remacri, we heard some holook gibbons calling from the mountains on the other side of the river.
Not all hope is lost for the wildlife in this wilderness. Dr Reza Khan, a long-time visitor to these forests and a nature lover, feels the introduction of eco-tourism holds promise. Offers to sight gibbons, deer and other wildlife for tourists would mean extra income for the hill people. They can be compensated for capping hunting sustainably.
“An effort to stop hunting was very successful at Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand where hunting by the ethnic groups was sending many species to extinction,” says Ronald Halder, a wildlife photographer. “Then an NGO took initiative to convince the hunters to build hides for photographers to snap wildlife. Now hunting has topped there and the ethnic people make more money by helping photographers.”
At Remacri, this also seems possible. Already, tourists are pouring in and bottled water has arrived. Some Marma offer stays at their shanties for Tk 50 a night and food at Tk 80 a meal. Boats are also available at Tk 2,500 a day.
But these are not organised efforts with any links to conservation. And without this, it would be a miracle if the gibbons lived to see many more dawns.
