Officials call for long-term financial support for community-led conservation and Community Conserved Areas in Nagaland
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KOHIMA — Community-led conservation in Nagaland is being sustained with limited resources and at hardly any cost to the government, with officials calling for long-term financial support and recognition of communities protecting the state’s biodiversity.
The need to support Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) and recognise the contribution of local communities was highlighted during a two-day state-level workshop on ‘Community Conservation: Celebrating Success and Charting the Future’ at Golden Jubilee Hall, Cathedral, Kohima, on Tuesday.
Chief Technical Advisor, PMC, Forest and Biodiversity Management in the Himalaya (Nagaland) Project (FBMP), Nand Kishore Agrawal, observed that conservation did not always require more laws, policies or protected areas, as sometimes the most powerful institution was the community itself.
Speaking on the importance of indigenous stewardship, he noted that indigenous peoples account for 6.2% of the global population, while 89% of Nagaland’s population is indigenous. Indigenous-held land, he said, showed lower deforestation, higher biodiversity and stronger carbon storage than government-managed protected areas.
However, he pointed out that less than 1% of climate finance reached indigenous communities directly, while 18.2% of indigenous people worldwide lived in extreme poverty.
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Observing that Nagaland was pursuing conservation with limited resources and at hardly any cost to the government, Agrawal suggested providing long-term financing to CCAs, respecting customary laws and recognising communities and individuals contributing to biodiversity conservation.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force, Nagaland, Vedpal Singh, also credited community involvement for the success of conservation initiatives in the state, stating that conservation efforts would not succeed without local communities.
He, however, observed that assigning moral responsibility alone was not enough and suggested providing communities with some form of direct or indirect remuneration for their conservation efforts. He also stressed the importance of authentic mapping and documentation, adding that discussions alone would not suffice without concrete data.
The workshop was organised by FBMP, funded by the Federal Republic of Germany through KfW and executed by the Nagaland State Biodiversity Board under the Department of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. The project covers over 400 CCAs in Nagaland.
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CCF (D&P) and Project Director, FBMP, Sidramappa Chalkapure, said the project covered 64 villages across six districts of Nagaland, including Mokokchung, Peren, Tuensang, Shamator and Wokha. He highlighted its contributions to biodiversity conservation, livelihood improvement, community infrastructure development and strengthening of local institutions.
He said conservation measures under the project covered 41,000 hectares of community forests, besides addressing human-elephant conflict and supporting the restoration of spring-sheds and stream-scapes.
Commissioner and Secretary and Team Leader, NEPED, Kovi Meyase, called for extending the community conservation model to more villages so that every community had an opportunity to protect its natural heritage. He stressed the importance of integrating technology, including GIS mapping, biodiversity monitoring and AI-driven analytics, to enhance transparency, accountability and efficiency.
He also called for inspiring young people to take an interest in conservation and suggested integrating CCA experiences into school and college curricula.
Meanwhile, Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and Village Guard, CL John, launched a toll-free helpline (1800-2020-878) for reporting human-elephant conflict (HEC) and unveiled a landscape management plan to address the issue.
Addressing the gathering, John expressed hope that the newly launched plan would help address human-elephant conflict cases reported in the low-lying areas of Nagaland every year. He urged people to report such incidents through the helpline and called for judicious use of conservation funds.
The minister also unveiled the project's annual report 2026, conservation fund guidelines and a new website, besides presenting awards to various CCAs in recognition of their conservation efforts.
Sangeeta Agrawal, Senior Sector Specialist, Natural Resource Management, KfW, New Delhi, spoke on Indo-German cooperation in biodiversity conservation and said the Nagaland project was supported through grant-based financing.
She also informed that efforts were underway to develop a new project covering four North-eastern states for the conservation of catchment areas of the Barak River, with Nagaland among the states to be covered.
During the programme, Thenhyayan village received the livelihood activity award for fruit and vegetable processing, Mmhayan village received the community-led conservation award for its 64.39-hectare CCA, and Langa CCA-C received the community infrastructure award for constructing a community rest house.
Representatives from all 64 villages attended the workshop, which will continue on November 4.