Pisi Zauing MIAO, April 11: Namdapha National Park in Changlang district is the fifteenth tiger reserve in the country spread over 1985.432 sq kms of forests, interpolated with moderate to steep precipitous hills, deep valleys, rippling rivulets and a huge natural lake atop Katwai bum, popularly known as Katwai Nawng, discovered only last year by park officials. It also has large reserves of oil and coal while some species of orchids found here are understood to be of high value in international market. No area is in the park is worthless. Even the low lands and river banks boast of clay, loose coarse sand gravel and boulder deposits. Thanks to the constant rainfall varying from 2500 to 3500 mm and temperature between 5 to 40 degree celcius with relative humidity between 60 to 70% for the rich bio-diversity of the park. The national park is mere 8 km from Miao township. The nearest railway station is Tinsukia (115 km) while the nearest airport is Mohanbari (148 km) in the outskirts of Dibrugarh in Assam. The sole motto behind notifying the National Park into a tiger reserve in 1983 was to provide total protection to Namdapha and ensure maintenance of minimum viable population of tigers for scientific, economic, aesthetic, cultural and ecological values. It also commits to conserve biodiversity of the reserve as national heritage for benefit of education and knowledge and to ensure scientific management of the reserve on basis of continued in-situ, ex-situ research activities. From the mid-eighties, the tiger reserve experienced large scale encroachment into its critical zones by Yobins of Vijaynagar. The graph of poaching since then soared whereby putting the existence of Namdapha tiger reserve at stake. Namdapha authorities adopted every possible option to clear its territories from the encroachers but owing to shortage of forest guards it couldn