It is well known to everyone that Nagaland’s Hornbill festival is among the most popular festivals in North East. Many Northeast states are eager to taste the success and has organized similar festivals.
Arunachal Pradesh has recently declared the Pakke Paga Hornbill Festival (PPHF)–the state’s only conservation festival, as a “state festival”. The first-ever PPHF was held on January 16–18, 2015. The festival, besides drawing tourists aims to recognise the role played by the resident Nyishi tribe in conserving hornbills in the Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR), to devise alternative sources of income for a region that relies on hunting and logging, and to tell the rest of the country about the wonders of the PTR and its surrounding areas.
As part of the festival, visitors are treated to cultural programmes, food stalls, plays, sightseeing, river and village walks, bird-watching, screenings of short films as well as local tribal sports and dances.
Chief Minister Pema Khandu urged the state Forest Department to fund the festival annually. Khandu also promised to provide funds for constructing a “permanent infrastructure” on the festival ground.
Will the festival grow as popular as Nagaland’s Hornbill festival. We will have to wait and see. But one things is sure, if too many Hornbill festivals are organized by other nearby states, the uniqueness of the original festival may wither.