Langha forest range visit-Life around UPES-Manomay Datar

 

Langha forest range visit

 

This project is about last week’s trip to Langha forest and what I learnt from my visit. As a student of the School of Liberal Studies (SOLS),UPES we visited the forest. The purpose of this trip was to learn about the ecosystem of Kandoli and to be more connected to the environment.

We all woke up early in the morning for the trip and assembled at the amphitheatre by ( am sharp. We all exchanged greetings and sat on the bus around 9:30 am. Just as luck would have it, it started raining as soon as we sat on the bus as if the weather was teasing us. We reached outside Bidholi campus 10 minutes later and embarked on the journey by foot from there onwards.

 

 

We were introduced to the local forest officer sent by the Langha Range Forest department and his accomplice who briefed us on the useful information about the forest. He told us that the forest is mainly a Sal forest and about various things such as difference between Sal wood and Sagwan wood he told us that both of them are used for building but one main difference is that Sal is harder when compared to Sagwan. Apart from that he told us that all tries such as Rohini, bamboos, Mango trees and Banyan trees. We also asked him about various recent leopard sightings in the area to which he told us that leopards and other wild animals are mostly spotted in the forest during the night time and one should be cautious when walking in the Langha forest at late night. He also told us about other animals such as deer, monkeys, peacocks and other species of birds which can be spotted there. We also learnt about a medicinal plant named “Rohini” which is applied by Indian women as “sindoor” on their foreheads. The officer told us about the dangers of the forest by telling us to be careful in the forest because 10 February – 15 June is known as the fire season so people should not sit or have picnic during this time. He told us to be kind towards the forest and be respectful as it plays a significant role in making the local ecosystem.

 

 

We covered a distance of almost 3 km from the forest to Dunga village on foot. The journey itself was memorable since on the way we had lots of fun sightings where we spotted a peacock, various flowers, bamboo shoots and much more! We were lucky that it didn’t rain any further after we started walking. Me and my friends took a lot of detours and were constantly competing to see who can cover the furthest distance quickly. After reaching the Dunga village we took a 10 minutes break to wait for our colleagues and then set foot towards Dunga haveli.

Manomay Datar

B.Sc Economics with data science