ITANAGAR, Oct 12: As part of World Wildlife Week, Tippi Wildlife Range (Pakke Tiger Reserve) had a 3 days celebration from Oct 8-10. A total of 42 school students and 20 teachers and anganwadi workers living around Pakke Tiger Reserve participated in the program.
The first day consisted of activities at the vibrant Tippi Nature Interpretation centre where kids were introduced to wildlife, its importance by experts in snake-handling, mountaineering, bird-watching and nature-education.
EAC Bhalukpong Tamo Riba participated in the event on the first day and encouraged the students to join hands with the forest department for the cause of wildlife conservation.
Children learned about multiple environmental aspects. They learned about renewable energy from Sumita Chakraborty who has finished with an assignment at the University of Cambridge.
The kids performed a small skit on snake-bite after learning about managing snake-bite, anti-venom and treatment from Gerry Martin, The Gerry Martin Project and Rohan Pandit, WWF-India.
Nilmani Rabha from the Wildlife Trust of India then took the kids on a virtual tour of Pakke by imitating sounds of animals in the forest. They were then taken on a virtual tour of the Himalayas that are visible from Pakke Tiger Reserve and learned about mountaineering from Nitin Punwar who was trained at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering.
The next day there was a rally for conservation where kids and forest department staff joined hands and marched with different placards and enthusiastically chanted slogans about saving wildlife.
“The staff from my range feels really energised when we organise such events given the difficult job we have to do”, said Kime Rambia, RFO of Tippi Wildlife Range who spearheaded the coordination of the event.
DFO, Pakke, DFO, Khellong Forest Division, Panchayat members and staff from the education department also actively participated in this rally and event.
In another event, 20 teachers from primary schools and angwanwadis were trained by nature-educator Chandini Chabbra where they were thought about nature games and activities that they could use as teaching aids when they go back to school.
The following days kids were divided into two groups where they were taken into Pakke and had lunch at an anti-poaching camp. One batch of kids saw a wild elephant, capped langur and sambar. They also learned about the life of forest department staff and lots of jungle craft from them. The kids were accompanied by several resource people while in the forest.
“Such events really help improve boost relations between the forest department and local communities as well as many other departments who come together for the common cause of wildlife conservation,” said Tana Tapi, the Divisional Forest Officer of Pakke Tiger Reserve.
