About North Bank landscape

In this part of the country, the North Bank Landscape (NBL) defines the area between northern bank of the river Brahmaputra in the south and the foothills of the eastern Himalayas in the north and the River Sankosh in the west, to the River Dibang in the east. The total size of the landscape is approximately 40,000km² and includes parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. About a quarter of the landscape (10,719km²) bears the status of an elephant reserve or a tiger reserve. The area comprises a major part of the Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspot and is also one of WWF’s Global 200 ecoregions.

NBL is one of the most important sites for the Asian elephant. It contains about 1,800 elephants that use about 16,000km² of this landscape. However, the ecological importance of this region goes far beyond the single species level. Overlapping the Manas-Namdhapa Tiger Conservation unit, it encompasses several WWF Tiger Conservation Project sites and is considered one of the key sites for WWF-India’s strategy for ecoregion-based conservation. NBL includes a number of protected areas and presents an ideal opportunity for proactive conservation measures.

The urgent need for preserving this habitat is being addressed by WWF-India through the AREAS and Indian Rhino Vision (IRV) 2020 programmes.