ZIRO, Mar 20: A training programme for nature guides, which had started on 15 March, concluded at the Pange forest camp in Talle Wildlife Sanctuary (TWS) in Lower Subansiri district on Tuesday.
The five-day programme was organised by the environment & forests department’s Hapoli division in collaboration with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), the World Wildlife Fund, and Dehradun-based Titli Trust.
DFO Koj Rinya said the objective of the programme was to “create a sustainable tourism framework in the biodiversity-rich TWS for nature enthusiasts and the research community.”
Socioeconomic empowerment of the local communities and conservation of natural resources would be some of the long-term outcomes of the programme, she said.
The programme involved capacity-building of departmental field staff and local youths of the district interested in the tourism sector. It featured theoretical sessions, followed by two days of field visits.
Various modules were covered by Rinya, DMO and naturalist Dr Tage Kanno, herpetologist Dr BB Bhatt, ornithologist Prof Ranjan Kumar Das, Hapoli RFO Tage Haniya, lepidopterist Rohit George, orchidologist Khyanjit Gogoi, and others.
The ATREE’s eastern Himalayan regional director, Dr Sarala Khaling, conducted a session on waste management.
The participants who attended all the sessions and completed both the theory and practical examinations were awarded certificate and books. (DIPRO)
