Street plays spread word about man-croc conflict

KENDRAPADA: To mitigate human-crocodile conflict in Bhitarkanika National Park, the forest department has roped in local artistes to create awareness programmes through street plays in the riverside villages around Bhitarkanika after crocodiles killed three persons, including a 10-year-old boy in a fortnight.
Traditional Pala singers and artistes have been using their songs in the street plays to spread awareness about the villagers not to use river water for any purpose as the water bodies of Bhitarkanika is the abode of more than 1,700 saltwater crocodiles.
“We are organising street plays to spread the message to villagers with the help of forest officials and trying to convince riverside villagers how dangerous this problem is. During our performances, we mixed in messages about how to stay away from the river water. We penned some songs to convince locals to use only tubewell water or the barricaded river ghats to bathe,” said Sagarika Mondal, an artiste of Talachua village.
“I composed a song for the street play ‘Bhitarknika amara garba Kumbhiramanaka paiki heuchi swargs, Nadi nala ko jiba nahi, Jibanaku ku banchayaba pai (We are proud for Bhitarkanika — It is the heaven for crocodiles, We will not enter the rivers and creeks to save our lives),” said Arati Mandal, a local artiste who performed in the street play.
Forest personnel also joined in the plays along with local artistes. “We organised street plays at Talachua and Keurapala gram panchayats within the park on Thursday evening. Artistes have a crucial role to play to create awareness. They are not only creating awareness about the danger of crocodiles but also trying to dispel the misinformation and rumours around the human-crocodile conflict,” said the divisional forest officer of the park, Sudarshan Gopinath Yadav.
Bhitarkanika, a vast tract of forest and saltwater swamp, is home to around 1,793 saltwater crocodiles as per this year’s reptile census. “We are also advising farmers to be cautious in the riverside areas as crocodiles often enter the riverside land to lay eggs. The forest department has also recently erected barricades around 80 river ghats and ponds around Bhitarkanika to prevent the crocodiles from attacking humans,” added the DFO.
“We have decided to organise street plays in all the gram panchayats to create awareness about the human-crocodile conflicts,” said Swarnalata Mandal, the sarapanch of Talachua GP.