Religious taboo among the tribes of West Kameng – an excellent traditional system of conserving biodiversity
Conservation of natural resources by traditional societies across the globe seems to have arisen out of the age-old practice of animistic religious belief systems. Such belief systems are fundamental aspects of people’s culture, which strongly conditions their use of natural resources. Arunachal Pradesh, a biodiversity hotspot region in the eastern Himalayas, is a tribal-dominated state with 26 major tribes and 110 ethnically distinct sub-tribes, where more than 80% of the population is from the rural area and is directly or indirectly dependent on the surrounding forest resources for its livelihood. (Correspondence)