Joining the Dots

Joining the Dots

Text and Photographs: Nimesh Ved and Swati Chaliha

We are indebted to the people of Ungma and Longsa, and the DGZ committee for bearing our ignorance and teaching us of forests during those very wonderful days and – of course - for the very lovely pineapples. Thanks are due to friends at NEPED for sharing of Nagaland, the energies and humour. Colleagues at FES we thank for being together and for presenting the opportunity.

This piece appears in the July – September 2015 issue of Hornbill (BNHS).

Twice on the first day, the dilemma posed to us was whether we should take the tar road that snaked along the path, albeit a little further from where we had figured out the boundary lay, or cut our way through the wild growth. In both cases, after deliberation, we decided that the easier path was not the one best taken, and cut through the forest.

We were walking the boundary of a Community Conserved Area (CCA) in Mokokchung district, Nagaland. CCAs are natural or modified ecosystems having significant biodiversity, ecological services, and cultural values. They are voluntarily conserved by local communities, through customary laws or by other effective means.

People of two villages, Ungma and Longsa, have come together to conserve an approximately one kilometre area on either side of the river that forms the boundary between their lands. Dikhu, the river which forms this 14 km long, meandering boundary, lends its name to the CCA, the Dikhu Green Zone (DGZ). Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Development (NEPED) and Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) have joined hands to learn from and support the initiative. In the spirit of working together, it was essential that there be a mutual agreement on the boundary that was to be demarcated, which would assist the people to effectively manage the resources of the forests. In Nagaland assigning natural features as boundaries has been a customary practice and cadastral maps do not exist. Having boundaries for CCAs could be pertinent in the wake of current development and conservation paradigm. Ashish Kothari in his ‘Community Conserved Areas: Towards Ecological and Livelihood Security’ enlists facilitating mapping of CCAs to establish boundaries (where relevant) as one of ways forward for CCAs.

These were put to dry outside the meeting venue

We shared our plans at a meeting where the village councils of Ungma and Longsa were present, along with the committee. DGZ Management Committee is a body that oversees the functioning of Dikhu Green Zone. Its members belong to Ungma and Longsa and are answerable to village councils of these villages. The Nagaland Village and Area Councils Act, 1978, empowers village councils, autonomous local bodies for village administration to function as per their customary practices and usages. Questions set the tone of the meeting, which ranged from whether it was possible to amend the boundary at a later stage, to if selected patches could be excluded at the current juncture. In the end, we all agreed that two of us walk the perimeter with a GPS and record the ‘waypoints’ and ‘tracks’, i.e., dots and lines, in the company of two guides  from the villages, and that we would consult the Committee on and off. 

We were to begin from a location that bears historical significance, the bridge over Dikhu. Anungla Aier and Tiatoshi Jamir write of this in their Re-interpreting the Myth of Longterok: Ao tradition says that after living in Chungliyimti for many generations, they crossed the river Tzula (Dikhu) by making a cane suspension bridge over it. After they crossed to the other side of the river, the suspension bridge was cut down to prevent others from crossing over. This significance has led to a suspension bridge being built at that very location in recent years.

As we walked along the perimeter of the proposed CCA, we indulged in ‘barter’ with our guides; while we shared our meagre awareness on conservation, we pestered them to talk of their interactions with nature in and around the villages! Some of these interactions left us baffled in no small measure, such as: the two villages, Ungma and Longsa, home to the same tribe, had different names for the same species!

The very beautiful 'Longla' - we had to pick up and pay due respects

One day, we saw a tree with a portion of its bark sliced off, approximately 15 to 20 inches at shoulder height, and pointed it out. This was a path frequented by hunters; slicing helped them move in the dark with the guidance of the resulting pale patch on the tree. Hunting and keeping wildlife as pets are socially and culturally accepted practices in the region. P.D. Stracey in his paper ‘A Note on Nagaland’ wrote almost half a century ago wrote: A couple of years ago a family of five tigers which were unlucky enough to stray to the vicinity of Mokokchung, were eliminated in a well organized hunt, but their carcasses were stretched out on bamboo frames and allowed to rot at the entrance of the village of Ungma.

On another day, guides pointed to two plants not far from each other. Rhizomes of the first (Korü: Curciligo sp.) are used as a laxative, while the other (Sheo yongi: Entada pursaetha) has a large pod and its seeds are used to clean hair and scalp (though with the availability of ‘modern’ alternatives its popularity has taken a beating). We also came across mammal signs; barking deer (Sheots: Muntiacus muntjak) and wild dog (Shrung: Cuon alpinus), besides others. While the barking deer appeared to have rubbed their teeth and horns on a tree trunk, the hair in the wild dog scat pointed to its having consumed a wild boar (Pongzü: Sus scrofa).

'Equisetums' along the riverbed as they swayed happily on a windy afternoon

One segment of the boundary was the National Highway No. 155, and it made walking high on ease, but low on excitement. Walking along, we came across a road-kill; a Copper-headed Trinket Snake (Coelognathus radiata) lay dead on the road amidst Pine plantations (Pinus khasya kesiya). Plantations of pine appeared and reappeared as we walked. 

On a cloudy morning with a slight drizzle, amidst the bamboo growth we saw the White-browed Piculet (Tombokrang: Sasia ochracea). A sparrow-sized bird, bearing white eyebrows, perched at a height of over a metre and at a distance of approximately 8 metres, it looked at us for a good 10 minutes before deciding it had had enough of us. Anwaruddin Choudhury, in his ‘Birds of Nagaland’, refers to it as an “uncommon resident”. No sooner had we made our notes and put the field-guides back (we confirmed all mammal and bird species with the help of field-guides), when our guides pointed to a burrow of the Lesser Bandicoot Rat (Por: Bandicota bengalensis). This animal, the guides said, was a delicacy that only men could consume!

We walked up and down, slow and fast, our eyes soaking in a mosaic of young and old jhum (shifting cultivation) fallows, rice terraces, and plantations, amongst others. Pine plantations lent their softness to the landscape, while the neatly laid firewood stock (fresh from the jhum fields) brought forth the locals' dependency on the land. The clouds cooperated by remaining hidden and enabling the GPS to ‘talk’ to the satellites.

This 'Asarkokum' lay resting on a steep path amidst dry leaves 

After the walk, we overlaid the data generated on a Google Earth image and organized meetings in both villages. We were keen not only to get the boundaries ratified by the village councils and committee members, but also to rectify possible errors. This was more fun than we had imagined! In Ungma, for example, the difficult terrain had us skip a patch of good forest, and the question now was how to rectify the gap. There was unanimity on the issue and we sat down to identify the contours that would form the rectified boundary. Not all issues were resolved as quickly. There were questions on the presence of structures, like a tea-garden and a restaurant falling within the boundary. For some of these, the print-outs of Google Earth images were not enough; we had to show them visuals online! '

After joining the dots and lines, and making revisions as deemed pertinent from the discussions, the boundary of the Dikhu Green Zone was ready. Enthusiasm and curiosity amongst the people we interacted with during the week was infectious. We had our share of confusions too, but as we walked together during the exercise, we realized that this was an exercise fresh for all, and by virtue of our socio-geographic differences, we had looked at the issues from varied perspectives. But then, this is how life too is never perfect, but ever interesting if we allow it to be! A couple of days later, as we pondered over the week, we realized we could not have agreed more with John Muir when he says In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.

Figs - of course - were unaffected by the winds