Arunachal Pradesh’s Pakke Paga Hornbill Festival gears up for its 9th Edition

Subject: Environment

Section: Protected Area

Context:

The 9th edition of the Pakke Paga Hornbill Festival (PPHF), a state festival of Arunachal Pradesh, will take place at Seijosa in the PakkeKessang district from January 18-20, 2024.

About Pakke Paga Hornbill Festival (PPHF):

The festival focuses on wildlife conservation, with a particular emphasis on hornbills.
The first-ever PPHF was held on January 16-18, 2015.
- The area is also home to the Nyishi, the largest tribal group in Arunachal Pradesh.
The aim was to recognise the role played by the Nyishi in conserving hornbills in PTR. The Nyishi had formerly hunted hornbills and used their bills to craft traditional headgear. They had later turned hornbill conservationists.
Other objectives were to raise alternative sources of income for the region and to create awareness in the rest of India about the wonders of PTR and its surrounding areas.
This year, the festival’s theme is DomutohDomutoh, Paga hum Domutoh.
It translates to ‘Let Our Hornbills Remain’ in the Nyishi language.
This year’s festival aims to underscore the critical need for preserving these iconic birds.

About Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR):

Pakke Tiger Reserve is a Project Tiger reserve in the East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India.
The reserve is protected by the Department of Environment and Forest of Arunachal Pradesh.
It was known as Pakhui Tiger Reserve but was renamed in April 2001 by the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh.
It has won the India Biodiversity Award 2016 in the category of ‘Conservation of threatened species’ for its Hornbill Nest Adoption Programme.
Four species of the birds — Wreathed, Great Indian, Oriental Pied and the endangered Rufous-necked — are found in the Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR) of Arunachal Pradesh.

About Hornbill bird:

Hornbills are birds found in tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Melanesia of the family Bucerotidae.
They are characterized by a long, down-curved bill which is frequently brightly coloured and sometimes has a horny casque on the upper mandible.
Hornbills have a two-lobed kidney.
They are the only birds in which the first and second neck vertebrae (the atlas and axis respectively) are fused together; this probably provides a more stable platform for carrying the bill.
The family is omnivorous, feeding on fruit and small animals.
They are monogamous breeders nesting in natural cavities in trees and sometimes cliffs.
In the Neotropical realm, toucans occupy the hornbills’ ecological niche, an example of convergent evolution.
Despite their close appearances, the two groups are not very closely related, with toucans being allied with the woodpeckers, honeyguides and several families of barbet, while hornbills (and their close relatives the ground hornbills) are allied with the hoopoes and wood-hoopoes.

Source: DTE