Kukurmara, Assam: On Environment Day, NDTV travels to Kukurmara village in Assam, just 40 km west of Guwahati, where people have not only learnt to live with the dolphins of Kulsi river -- a tributary of the Brahmaputra -- but also love them enough to protect them.
And Kukurmara is fast turning into an eco- tourism hotspot. That's because more than 30 Gangetic river dolphins inhabit the river and unlike other areas, sighting them is fairly easy here.
This is a most unlikely place for river dolphins to be happily playing around. But this sight would have been rare had it not been for Krishna Ram Koibotro 's simple efforts at conservation.
He now recalls how difficult it was for him to convince the villagers to protect this species.
"People used to laugh at me when I talked about looking after these dolphins. But I was relentless in explaining how important it is for our eco-system and if we don't care for it. It would one day be extinct the way our tortoise and tigers have slowly become extinct," Krishna said.
Krishna spread this superstition that killing of dolphins would lead to death in the family. Otherwise hunted for it's oil, the dolphins are now well protected by the villagers and has even increased in number this year. But Krishna still feels it's a long way to go in protecting the dolphins.
"Lot of people are doing projects on this river, but no development is happening. There should be an arrangement for cleaning, planting of trees or even building toilets for the people of this village so as the river doesn't get dirty. Local people are taking care of the dolphins, but outsiders come with projects and do nothing. They have not even put up a poster saying don't kill the dolphins," Krishna said.
A single man's effort at conserving these Gangetic river dolphins have so far been successful but it requires serious efforts at a much bigger scale for the survival of the dolphin.