Villagers from Arunachal Pradesh sport Hor4nbill beak headgear during a side event at the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad on Thursday. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf
At a presentation on the sidelines of COP 11 they reveal the result of their efforts
Arunachal Pradesh is helping tribal residents use ‘globally significant
medicinal plants’ for livelihood security through community management
of forests. The State has a staggering 500 medicinal plant species, and
more than half the forests come under the control of the indigenous
people.
At a presentation on indigenous and new approaches to natural resource
management in the State, held on the sidelines of the Conference of the
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity here on Thursday,
tribal practitioners said they had set up seven Medicinal Plant
Conservation Areas (MPCAs).
According to tribal beliefs in Arunachal Pradesh, dense forests and big
trees are looked upon as ancestral souls, and hornbill hunting is banned
during the breeding season. The tiger is sacred as it is the ‘brother
of Tani, the first humans on earth’.
However, as a presentation by the INSPIRE Network for Environment made
clear, large tracts of forest had been lost in Arunachal due to
development of pastoral lands, agriculture expansion, shifting
cultivation and demand for firewood and timber. INSPIRE is helping
residents in Western Arunachal’s Tawang-Kameng area form a large
arboretum for Rhododendron arboreum, an evergreen tree with bright red
or pink flowers that holds the soil against landslips. Its flowers are
used to produce squash under a plan partnered by the Indo-Tibetan Border
Police and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust.
Medicinal plants have come to the rescue of communities, and hence they
vigorously guard against the removal of plant and animal species by
outsiders. Hake-Tari, Salari, Laa and Wannu are examples of community
forests, said Tapu Gapak, member-secretary of the Medicinal Plants Board
of Arunachal Pradesh.
Arunachal Pradesh is attempting to show that community ownership can
help produce incomes from biodiversity sustainably. There is strong
support for conservation of fauna, too.
The Nature Conservation Foundation has been working in the area around
the Pakke Tiger Reserve with the Nyishi tribal people, successfully
persuading them against hunting hornbills for casques, which form part
of headgear. Fibreglass substitutes are accepted. Tribal residents have
participated in nest protection schemes, and local councils have seized
guns from villages.
An adoption scheme launched by NCF for the hornbills has attracted 49
urban patrons, who paid between Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 1-lakh to protect the
birds in nesting sites. A dozen birds have fledged through this scheme.
NCF researcher Amruta Rane said that in the next phase an assessment of
abundance of nesting sites and availability of some 45 fruit tree
species favoured by hornbills would be carried out.
A pictorial guide to significant medicinal plants of Arunachal Pradesh
authored by D. Yonggam, with information about their use, was released
here by MLA Bamang Felix.
Several tribal participants were present at the discussion wearing wood
casque headgear, demonstrating how hornbills could be spared.
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