The third Namdapha Butterfly meet concluded at Miao in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday.
Several butterfly enthusiasts from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya participated in the three butterfly event.
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Namdapha National Park in Arunachal, which is the largest protected area that falls under the eastern Himalaya biodiversity hotspot.
In the three-day event, 176 butterfly species were spotted at Namdapha National park.
The three-day event was organised by Society for Education and Environmental Development.
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Minom Pertin, chief organiser of the meet said, “For the third time we are organising the meet to create awareness on the conservation of butterfly because Namdapha has many species of butterfly.”
“Three months back our organisation have done a survey and recorded 410 species of butterfly at Namdapha National park. But this time 150 participants gave participated in the three-day meet,” Pertin said.
“Namdapha is an excellent butterfly destination in the Northeast and those who loved butterfly should visit Namdapha once,” said Isaac Kehimkar.
“This is the biggest butterfly meet so far. Total 1500 species of butterfly are found in Indian forest and among them, 900 species are found in Northeast,” Kehimkar added.
The park harbours rich biodiversity of flora and fauna and has many rare species, including the brown gorgon, yellow gorgon, tailed sulphur and brimstone.
“From 1993 I am coming to Namdapha in love for butterfly and very much happy to see the rich biodiversity of Namdapha,” Kehimkar said.
“Rarest of the rare butterfly found here and now the young people are coming to conserve the butterfly species,” Kehimkar added.
“Butterfly indicates the quality of the environment and government should conserve for our future generations. Deforestation should be stopped at any coast to conserve butterfly species,” Kehimkar further said
Ajith Unnikrishnan, an IT professional from Bangalore said he was happy to participate in the meet and learn a lot about the butterfly species of the Arunachal Pradesh.
“Last year I went to Butterfly festival at Ziro. I love the butterfly and for them, I visit the places where they have a rich population,” he said.
Pertin said they have started the meet from 2018 and the butterfly movement is gaining ground.
“We have organised an art competition among the children’s and a large number of children’s participation in the event which is a good thing. We have also organised a bicycle rally to create awareness on butterfly conservation,” said Pertin.