HT Correspondent
DIMAPUR, June 23: Noted wildlife conservationist and journalist Bano Haralu expressed concern that Nagaland lost 354 sq km of humid primary forest and 2,680 sq km of tree cover area from 2002 to 2024.
She attributed the loss of forest cover in the state to the fragmentation of forest as community conserved area, where connectivity is absent in most places and hunting of birds and animals is regular.
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“This is the major cause of slow regeneration of the forest,” Haralu noted.
Haralu is the programme manager of the Wildlife Conservation Society-India’s Nagaland–Conservation and Livelihoods initiative.
She was speaking at a workshop on community biodiversity and wildlife conservation, organised by the Kohima Press Club in collaboration with Silviculture division Kohima, at Botanical Garden Kohima, a release said on Monday.
She added that the absence of conservation awareness on ecology and indigenous and traditional knowledge about nature and its surrounding is another reason for the depleting forest cover in the state.
”Our state is not prioritising conservation of the environment and lags in creating alternate livelihood incomes for farmers and people,” Haralu observed.
She also highlighted the imminent threats to the environment prevailing in state such as soil erosion, deforestation and the introduction of monocropping culture.
