April 25, 2024
April 25, 2024
GUWAHATI, Apr 22: What has reddish-brown fur, a long, shaggy tail, and a waddling gait with short front legs?
Meet the red panda, (Ailurus fulgens), also called the lesser panda or the red bear-cat, a mammal native to the eastern Himalayas. A potential habitat for this creature has been earmarked in Arunachal Pradesh, with 114 square km in West Kameng district to be formally declared a community-conserved area on Sunday.
The area shares its western boundary with Shaktem wildlife sanctuary in Bhutan. The community-conserved area is Mandala-Phudung-Khellong, situated at a height of 4,000 metres above sea level.
Signboards of the community conserved area will be installed at different locations which will be followed by a declaration by the management committee. The meeting will be attended by WWF and local forest officials and villagers. Sonam Gonpapa, convenor of the community-conserved area, said wildlife conservation would get a big boost with this declaration. “We will tell the people about the importance of wildlife conservation,” he told The Telegraph. Besides red panda, tragopan is also found in the area, populated by nearly 3,000 people.
The population comprises panchayat members, village elders and youth who work for conservation and management of their forests.
The community-conserved area model is an important tool which is effective in a state like Arunachal, where more than 60 per cent of forest land (roughly 30,000 square km) belongs to local communities and is governed by traditional customary laws.
Arunachal Pradesh has seven community-conserved areas spread over 1,500 square km. WWF-India had introduced the concept of community-conserved area in 2004 since most of the forest land is owned by local communities and the focus is to strengthen community-based conservation initiatives. The red panda is listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act and categorised as an endangered species in the IUCN Red List.
The 2018 draft National Forest Policy highlighted community forests in the Northeast and called for its mapping and defined boundaries. The policy says these forests would be treated as a mosaic of community forest management landscapes and delineated and mapped, having well-defined, digitised boundaries. (Courtesy: The Telegraph)
