Thread you will love to read -Lots of News on Migratory Species is around as #CMSCOP13 is live at Gandhinagar. Sitting through d various sessions, I felt that one major conservation success story of our country should reach all corners&people, that is Nagaland's Amur Falcon! 1/n 
Nagaland is called as Falcon Capital of the World. Millions of Amur Falcon visit the state to roost while travelling from East Asia to South Africa during the winters. Season starts from Sept/October. 2/n
Nagaland has many tribal communities, who are majorly Hunters since time immemorial. They hardly had any other alternative livelihood. Wildlife & hunting was close to their culture. Most tribal accessories were made from animal products. The tribe in the pic have few of them 3/n
Amur falcons were an easy target for their hunting as they were in large numbers. The bird weighs abt 150gms. Studies were carried out Forest Dept, Institutes& NGOs and it was brought to light that the number of birds got reduced drastically. 4/n
Forest Dept & NGOs took up various measures to educate people that the Amur Falcons are the guest of the state. Awareness campaigns targeted woman and children through schools and camps. Churches were involved to preach people abt this. Special prayers were conducted. 5/n
With the effective continuous efforts, few communities started to change. Youngsters got sensitized. But the older generation resisted. With further efforts, village committes started to pass resolution to protect these birds. This was a gaint leap forward. 6/n
Forest Dept started to train people to provide them alternate livelihood through ecotourism. Villages got prepared to host the visitors. Slowly this economy started to look promising. People participation was the key. 7/n
Amur Falcon numbers started to increase, the study conducted during 2017-19 proved this fact. Many villages joined hands in this movement. Its really a gaint move, as they have to break their long culturally habit to get themselves understand Amur Falcons are their guests 8/n
Studies were conducted by radio chipping few birds to understand their flight movement. Three birds Naga, Wokha, Pangti named after the tribes were chipped. One of these birds gave details for three years, that helped to understand their flyway and flight dynamics. 9/n
Nagaland's Amur Falcon story is one of d best. Fighting d cultural tradition& changing d rigid mentality of d tribes to support conservation is the most difficult part
Content Source/ credits to Suman Sivachar IFS @wmsuman& team from the presentation made at COP
@BonnConvention
Content Source/ credits to Suman Sivachar IFS @wmsuman& team from the presentation made at COP
@BonnConvention
As a participant of that session, I was able to capture the speech of Alemba, Game watcher who works in Nagaland Forest Department. He wears his tribe's traditional attire. Listen to his speech in Hindi to know how dedicated the front line staff are. Kudos to the entire team.
The entire contingent from Nagaland right from ground staff, FD, Scientist and the NGO spoke about the success story of Amur Falcon conservation. The session was well received by all the audience from various sectors. The team was led by @wmsuman.
