This morning in Nafra, Arunachal Pradesh, started with a bone-racking top-of-the-sumo ride till a place called Rurang, 12 km away, where I was headed to see a shifting cultivation landscape. The first thing we did was to have a mug each of beer made from locally-grown corn called 'lao pani'. My recent acquaintance from Nafra, Nigam was carrying his gun, for him it was a business-as-usual trip. Everyday of all my field days, I have hoped to see animals, but this day I was hoping we see only signs such as footprints, scat, dung and feeding signs. Earlier, in a place called Buragaon my field assistant brought along a sling shot and within an hour he brought down two little birds; a Red-tailed minla and a Brown-cheeked fulvetta.
This time, I tried to tell Nigam that we need not hunt as we go along but he couldn't care. He went along an animal-path and with his first shot got back some feathers of a dead bird and said that the meat was spoilt due to the gun shot and that at his second shot a bird escaped; I was mentally smiling. Along the path we saw footprints of wild boar and muntjac. We then walked into a beautiful jhum-home and we were offered a mug each of lao-pani and some roasted corn and colocasia, a meal I thoroughly enjoyed, hungry as I was. Another Miji community local passed by and sat with us and with a shout told his mother in a home below to cook something for us to eat. We had two more mugs of corn beer and local eggs, boiled. We then went into the next house and we were offered raw salted ginger and a mug of corn beer! I took their photographs and promised to develop them and give them a copy in my next trip to Rurang. The generosity of remote communities in Arunachal Pradesh amazes me.
Each of these houses were made of bamboo, firewood was used for cooking, food was cooked from vegetables and tubers grown in plots nearby, the tobacco smoked was grown too and beer was made from corn. There was nothing that had to be 'manufactured' or bought from a store and then I was thinking; at first look the hills look deprived of forests with fields in small patches; 2–3 ha per family and therefore these families were destroying the forests, but overall their per capita ecological footprint was negligible compared to mine. Even sitting here logging this I am using up electricity, computers, internet and diesel/petrol to visit the place. I promised myself to be careful before pointing fingers at others; at least in this respect.
But definitely the worst combination is brewed when people in remote villages have access to markets in towns with guns, bleaching powder, snares, bombs, among others. The day after visiting Rurang, I headed to a hamlet close to Nafra called Nakhu and locals there were boasting that they caught about 20 kg of fish with just 1 kg of bleaching powder. In other places too I had heard of other methods to catch fish; with a bomb or with electricity.
In my trip to Upper siang, central Arunachal, a local Adi allowed me to join him in one of his trips to check rodent-snare traps. Takeng had laid 25 to 30 traps with jobs tear millet as bait. In the morning I was with him the traps had caught 15 rodents of at least two species. It is hard to judge someone controlling rodents in their agricultural fields cultivated for subsistence with a lot of labour.
Therefore in North-east India, it seems impossible to completely stop hunting due to its links to tradition and culture. But by spreading awareness, it may be possible to convince the locals to use less destructive hunting and fishing methods and spare the rare species and give them time to recuperate.
This time, I tried to tell Nigam that we need not hunt as we go along but he couldn't care. He went along an animal-path and with his first shot got back some feathers of a dead bird and said that the meat was spoilt due to the gun shot and that at his second shot a bird escaped; I was mentally smiling. Along the path we saw footprints of wild boar and muntjac. We then walked into a beautiful jhum-home and we were offered a mug each of lao-pani and some roasted corn and colocasia, a meal I thoroughly enjoyed, hungry as I was. Another Miji community local passed by and sat with us and with a shout told his mother in a home below to cook something for us to eat. We had two more mugs of corn beer and local eggs, boiled. We then went into the next house and we were offered raw salted ginger and a mug of corn beer! I took their photographs and promised to develop them and give them a copy in my next trip to Rurang. The generosity of remote communities in Arunachal Pradesh amazes me.
Each of these houses were made of bamboo, firewood was used for cooking, food was cooked from vegetables and tubers grown in plots nearby, the tobacco smoked was grown too and beer was made from corn. There was nothing that had to be 'manufactured' or bought from a store and then I was thinking; at first look the hills look deprived of forests with fields in small patches; 2–3 ha per family and therefore these families were destroying the forests, but overall their per capita ecological footprint was negligible compared to mine. Even sitting here logging this I am using up electricity, computers, internet and diesel/petrol to visit the place. I promised myself to be careful before pointing fingers at others; at least in this respect.
But definitely the worst combination is brewed when people in remote villages have access to markets in towns with guns, bleaching powder, snares, bombs, among others. The day after visiting Rurang, I headed to a hamlet close to Nafra called Nakhu and locals there were boasting that they caught about 20 kg of fish with just 1 kg of bleaching powder. In other places too I had heard of other methods to catch fish; with a bomb or with electricity.
In my trip to Upper siang, central Arunachal, a local Adi allowed me to join him in one of his trips to check rodent-snare traps. Takeng had laid 25 to 30 traps with jobs tear millet as bait. In the morning I was with him the traps had caught 15 rodents of at least two species. It is hard to judge someone controlling rodents in their agricultural fields cultivated for subsistence with a lot of labour.
Therefore in North-east India, it seems impossible to completely stop hunting due to its links to tradition and culture. But by spreading awareness, it may be possible to convince the locals to use less destructive hunting and fishing methods and spare the rare species and give them time to recuperate.
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