The national seminar organised as part of ‘Sacred Groves Festival’ at Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya concluded on Saturday with a panel discussion. The panel discussion was chaired by Ram Prasad, former VC, Barkatullah University and retd PCCF.
In his chairing address, Prasad said that in India, both forests and foresters are declining. We (society) have confused number of tigers with bio-diversity. Bio-diversity comprises of all species of flora and fauna. Speaking about the work done by IGRMS, he said that IGRMS is not forester yet with the help of experts this institution is continuously doing wonderful job in the field of sacred groves.
The expert panel comprised of experts like Prof BK Tiwari (Professor, NEHU, Shillong), Prof SK Barik (Professor, NEHU, Shillong), Tambor lyngdoh (Expert, North-East), Amitabh Pandey (Professor, IIFM) and P Shankar Rao (Asstn Keeper, IGRMS).
Prof Tiwari spoke on developing the pace of inventory and advocated for developing a national policy for sacred groves like the other protected areas. Prof Barik insisted to involve science and technology for geo-tagging the groves and central government to make schemes for developing and protecting such groves. lyngdoh informed about the programmes working for saving and developing sacred groves in North-East. After the panel discussion an open session was organised where experts and audience shared knowledge and clarified doubts.
On the day two of the national seminar following research papers was presented ‘Oran’ a traditional pastoral system strengthens socio-cultural, climatic and livelihoods resilience in dry lands
Simultaneously, people from Meitei community of Manipur performed rituals of ‘lai haraoba Festival’ at Umang lai sacred grove in IGRMS and community people from Meghalaya performed ritualistic activities at ‘MawBukhar’ sacred grove. On this occasion traditional sacred grass from Manipur was planted in Umang lai. Part of the ritual communities sang songs and danced.