The Dehing Patkai rainforest: Assam’s green frontier gets a new protection plan

Dehing Patkai, Assam’s last surviving lowland rainforest, is a green vault of hornbills, tigers and the region’s densest canopy — and it is under steady pressure from mining and encroachment.

A new protection plan combines corridor mapping with camera-trap monitoring and a buffer strategy that pays villages to keep the forest edge intact.

Wildlife officers are optimistic but honest: ‘Protection plans work when the villages work with them.’