Migratory Birds ( Amur Falcon) Masaccare in Nagaland

Nagaland is in the news again! Sadly not for a good one this time.

National Geographic have an article on the massacre of migratory birds, Amur Falcons in Nagaland. Here is the link to the article on National Geographic. Such news does not put us in good light. Nagas have been hunters in the past and it is still a passion for many (if we are left with any thing to hunt for due to our least concern for preserving nature). And though people in village remote areas and villages survive on bare necessities, with the world changing around us and awareness all around to preserve nature and it's resources , we also need to change our ways for better.

We need to educate our people to be kind to nature, preserve nature. Besides, there should be adequate alternative sources of livelihood so the people at the grass root level are not led to destroy nature to make ends meet.

Some excerpt from the article referring directly to Nagaland:
"It is clear that the people of Nagaland urgently need better access to education and rural development programs that support sustainable livelihoods alongside biodiversity conservation in this beautiful region. I hope that the whole world will be watching what the Indian government does next year to stop this slaughter. Migratory species like Amur falcons drive home that we are a global community that needs global solutions to poverty, hunger, climate, and biodiversity conservation…"

"The local people filmed by Conservation India catching Amur falcons, breaking their wings, sorting them, smoking them, and trading in them, cannot possibly enjoy this annual activity and do this purely for money and trade goods. They may look forward to the arrival of the falcons, but only because of the commercial and subsistence opportunities. Most of the local community most likely celebrate the arrival of the falcons as a wonder of nature and simply marvel at it. This is not just happening in India. It has happening all over the world. It has happened before and caused extinctions… Remember the passenger pigeon of the United States? Right now, hundreds of thousands of African green pigeons in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are being caught in nets, skewered, and smoked in a similar fashion… They will go locally extinct if we do not stop this unsustainable trade…When everything is stripped away by poverty and hunger, life becomes very simple and breaking the wings of a falcon or a pigeon and keeping it alive to preserve the meat before smoking would make perfect sense. We will never halt the devastating impacts of the bushmeat and international wildlife trade until we address the striking inequalities in our global community, at village level, regional level, national level, and in the international community. To put yourself in place of the people involved in the Amur falcon trade please read how Dalvi and Sreenivasan ..."

Video filmed in Nagaland by Conservation India:



Related articles in the media:
Hindustan times
Conservation India
Indian Express
Bird Ecology Study Group