Coinciding with the World Environment Day, the Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Develop (NEPED) Kohima, Nagaland in collaboration with the Nagaland Community Conservation Area Forum (NCCAF) donated wild vegetables to the Kohima District Administration on 5th June 2020. 

The Team Leader NEPED & Commissioner & Secretary, K. Libanthung Lotha stated that the donation was to showcase the important role played by the community having the Community Conservation Areas (CCAs) across Nagaland. 

The Team Leader in his short note stated that the World Environment Day is celebrated with the theme "Time for Nature" with a focus on its role in providing the essential infrastructure that supports life on earth and human development. "Despite all benefits that our nature gives us, we still mistreat and misuse it too. That is why we need to observed it in a befiting manner to create awareness among all of us". 

Keeping this in line, the NEPED and NCCAF celebrated the day to create awareness through the donation of wild vegetables that is in CCA's the rich Biodiversity in Nagaland. "When we destroy Biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life". He further stated that the CCA across Nagaland cannot be underscored of the important role that the communities had played and the hardships and also the difficulties that they face, not only from outside, but even from within. "We are intimately interconnected with nature. If we do not take care of nature, for all the bountiful that it provides, we cannot and will not be able to take care of our mother Earth", he added.

NEPED expressed gratitude to the individual CCA and NCCAF for the support in these trying times in delivering wild vegetables to all the Deputy Commissioners across Nagaland so as to utilised at their discretion as per necessity.

(DPRO, Kohima)