11th May 2019 10:05:PM Editorials
Eastern Sentinel Arunachal News

It hardly needs any retelling  that Arunachal Pradesh is one of the richest biodiversity hotspots in world having a vast range of flora & fauna species and ecosystem diversity. The recent discovery of a new species of reddish brown pit viper snake from the forests of West Kameng has not only reinforced this fact but also underscored once again that the state, as of yet is grossly underexplored in this regard. And the news about this startling discovery coincidentally comes at a time when the United Nations scientific report has just been made public on May 6  catching world’s attention about the unprecedented decline in global biodiversity that is going to have alarming implications  on human survival. The two news are linked with each other in the sense that both signals the need for actions. If the latter news demands urgency from the committee of nations  to sit together and draft rescue measures, the first one will be an eye opener for the state, a reminder once again to give more priority to its biodiversity treasure troves, both through research and preservation efforts.
It will be really difficult to sum up the ecological vastness of Arunachal in a single paragraph. And it seems, that mother nature has shown no frugality and saturated the state with endless wonders of ecological marvels, placing it among the 200 globally important eco-regions as also one of the eighteen biodiversity hotspots in the world. But still, it would not be an exaggeration to say that it might be just the tip of an iceberg with still so much to unearth. This is quite evident from the occasional discoveries of new species, brown pit viper being the latest one. It is worth recalling that a new crab species in Changlang and also a rare butterfly sub-species in West Kameng were found in in 2018 & 2013 respectively. And according to majority of experts, there are large areas of state that are still to be explored or where bio-diversity has not been professionally inventoried which has resulted in paucity of data, triggering an apathy from academia to show  further interest.But the fact that a substantial portion of ecological reserves are still available in Arunachal is a silver lining, particularly at a time when the entire world is rueing over the  grand-scale loss.
A coordinated approach for preserving the existing ones, exploring the hitherto unseen and unheard and their documentation and dissemination  with active involvement of all stakeholders including the rural communities who are the actual ground-level conservationists is the only way out.
This is a great gift of nature which must be preserved by all means.


Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

<< Back to News List