Rural Nagaland wakes up to Climate Change challenge

Dimapur | December 1: Rural Nagaland has finally woken up to the two main challenges confronting the human race today  — global warming and climate change — and has  decided to lend a helping hand.  As a starter, more than 5000 elders and leaders representing the 1128 recognized villages in Nagaland unanimously resolved that every village should maintain a reserved forest.
The village authorities also resolved to revive  traditional water-holes,  restrict hunting and fishing,  check indiscriminate burning of jungles  and that every village should maintain a bio-diversity register.
These were among the eight resolutions adopted on the concluding day of the two-day Nagaland VDB & Communitisation conference, which was inaugurated by Chief  Minister Neiphiu Rio on Monday, at Ganesh  Nagar, some 35km from Dimapur town.
The other resolutions adopted are: to ‘honestly and truthfully’ record the population of each village in the next 2011 census;  train at least one person from every village in IT and in the use of  computers  and, that the VDB and comunitisation conference would be held every three years.
Chief minister Neiphiu Rio had on Monday told the same gathering that the government was finding it difficult to formulate a correct “prospective plan” basing on the census as the 2001 census was not  undertaken properly. Rio appealed to the village authorities to ensure that the 2011 census presents the correct figure. The adoption of the resolutions was presided over by  Additional Chief Secretary Banuo Jamir.
Earlier, in the morning session, officials from departments including Agriculture, Forest, Veterinary & Animal Husbandry, Horticulture, Fisheries, Soil & Water Conservation and NBRM/NEPED highlighted to the village elders and representatives the activities of  the respective departments vis-a-vis Global Warming and Climate  Change.
Nagaland State Women Commission chairman Sanuo Vamuzo also exhorted the gathering on issues of women’s rights. Additional Chief  Secretary & Development  Commissioner  Alemtemshi Jamir chaired the morning session. A record 5794 delegates from all recognized villages besides officials and others attended the two-day  conference.

 

Dimapur, December 1 (MExN): The Centre has released its India State of Forest Report 2009 where Nagaland is among the states that have registered huge loss of forest cover in the last few years. According to the report,  the states which have performed poorly on the forest report card are Nagaland, which lost 201 sq. km forest cover, Andhra Pradesh, which lost 129 sq. km forest cover and Arunachal Pradesh, which lost 119 sq. km forest cover. The report said Jharkhand, Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya have gained more than 0.5 per cent forest cover while Haryana, Tripura and Nagaland have lost more than 0.5 per cent forest cover between 2005 and 2007.