Context: The National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) eastern bench in Kolkata has ordered a stay-on-road construction work inside the Barak Bhuban wildlife sanctuary in Assam’s Cachar district.

About Barak Bhuban Wildlife Sanctuary

• It is a wildlife sanctuary located in Assam's Cachar district. 

• The sanctuary is located in Barak Valley, which also includes the Borail Wildlife Sanctuary.

• Rivers: Barak and Sonai rivers flow through the river. The sanctuary has been named after the Barak River.

• Fauna: Many primate species including slow loris, rhesus macaque, and hoolock gibbon are found here. There is also an abundance of king cobra in the sanctuary.

• Flora: The vegetation types here are tropical evergreen, semi-evergreen, tropical deciduous, and there is availability of rainforests in the northern and southern eastern parts of the sanctuary.

Sonai and Barak Rivers

• The Barak River originates in the Manipur hills and enters the plains near Lakhipur, Assam. Through the states of Manipur, Mizoram and Assam in India.

• It flows into Bangladesh where it bifurcates into the Surma River and the Kushiyara River which converge again to become the Meghna River before forming the Ganges Delta. The Barak River's main tributaries include the Jiri, Dhaleswari, Singla, Longai, Sonai, and Katakhal.

• The Barak is the second largest river in Northeast India after the Brahmaputra. Barak has a length of about 900 km of which 564 km falls in India.

Sonai

• It is the tributary of Barak. It is known as the Tuirial River and flows through the town of Sonai and joins the Barak River near Dungripar Village. The Tuirial Dam is located in the river.

About Barak Valley

• It is located in the Southern part of Assam.

• It is named after the river Barak, the largest river of the valley and second largest of Northeast India.

• The area shares its border with other states like Meghalaya in the north, Manipur in the east, Tripura and Mizoram in the south, and is flanked with the transnational boundary of Bangladesh in the south.

• It is a part of the Indo Myanmar biodiversity hotspot.

• Approximately 4.8% geographical area of the valley is covered by tea plantations and remaining most of the hillock areas are either in home gardens or under reserve forests.

• Vegetation: The forests in the valley are tropical evergreen, semi-evergreen, tropical deciduous, and secondary and there are large tracts of rainforests in the northern and southern eastern parts of the valley.

• Climate: The climate of the valley is characterized by subtropical, warm and humid.