[Commentary] Responding to ecological imbalance: Tokugha’s journey in conservation

By Chitra Sangtani on 28 January 2022, MONGABAY

• Nagaland has been witnessing a rapid depletion in forest cover and loss of wildlife in the recent decades.
• Compelled by the changes in his immediate surroundings, school headmaster Tokugha Sumi decided to take an active role in mobilising communities for conservation.
• Partnering with an NGO Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), he led the formation of the Nanga Greener Zone (NGZ) and the Nagaland Community Conserved Areas Forum (NCCAF), for community-based conservation which now has 23 members in Nagaland comprising 99 villages.
• The views in this commentary are that of the author.

Many things signal the imbalance of the natural world. For Tokugha Sumi, a school headmaster, a village council member and the son of the headman of Sapotami village in Nagaland, it was the loss of bird
sounds and the disappearance of various animals like monkeys, gibbons and hornbills from the forests. While Tokugha’s father and forefathers would rely on bird calls to predict the arrival of rain, wind and sun, newer generations had to abandon this practice. This is due to the dwindling number of birds around the village, and also because the sounds no longer correspond to changes in the weather. “They give the wrong signals,” Tokugha explains. “This is an ecological imbalance. We created this.”

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