From hunters to guardians: the Amur falcons of Doyang

Every autumn, Amur falcons gather around the Doyang reservoir in Nagaland's Wokha district on a migration that carries them between Asia and southern Africa. In October 2012, journalist-turned-conservationist Bano Haralu led a team to Doyang to check reports of mass hunting. Her account, in The Better India, describes nets set across the water and thousands of birds trapped each day, sold for about Rs 25 apiece.

Reports of the total kill that autumn range from about 100,000 to 150,000 birds, the highest ever recorded in India. The Morung Express reported on the people behind the nets: fishermen of Pangti village, squeezed by a dam that had flooded farmland and by elephants that damaged what remained. They were not villains but a community short of options.

What changed was an offer of another identity. Haralu founded the Nagaland Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Trust in 2013, and the village councils of Pangti, Ashaa and Sungro declared hunting the falcons illegal and punishable. Schoolchildren were taught to use binoculars and trace the birds' migration. In November 2013 three falcons were fitted with satellite tags and given local names: Naga, Wokha and Pangti. Pangti's village council chairman, Ronchamo Shitiri, summed up the hope: “We will be known for something more than hunters.”

Reported kills in Nagaland fell to zero the following year, after the campaign. If you go, go in the right month, hire a local guide and treat Doyang as a place where people are still earning their reputation.