The only way to reach the ridge, known to the communities of Shirui village in Manipur as a haunt for wildlife, is an ascent up a steep ravine alongside a mountain stream. Its slopes are strewn with slippery serpentinite rocks and dense undergrowth of stinging nettles and wild yellow impatiens. Pamreithing Luireiwo, a resident of Shirui, led the way, using his small dao to clear the stinging nettles while keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding slopes. Every so often, he stopped and studied the terrain, spotting animal tracks and signs of activity that an untrained eye would mistake for ordinary forest undergrowth.
“A boar went through here,” he said casually before setting off again, negotiating the slippery incline with ease. A few minutes later, he noticed a disturbance in the undergrowth and remarked that a serow had crossed towards higher ground in search of the season dwarf bamboo shoots.
Half an hour later, the rich biodiversity of Shirui’s subtropical rainforest came into view. The forest is home to Manipur’s state flower and bird: the endemic Shirui Lily and the elusive Mrs. Hume’s Pheasant, locally known as nongin.
The stinging nettles and wild impatiens of the ravine gave way to towering, ancient trees, beneath which the forest floor was carpeted with dwarf bamboo, wild begonias, mahonias, terrestrial orchids and majestic ferns.
A community’s commitment to conservation
For years, the people of Shirui village have conserved and managed the commons in and around Shirui Kashong peak to protect the habitat of Manipur’s state flower, the Shirui Lily, and arrest its declining population through replanting efforts. Three years ago, they extended the conservation initiative to the entire village and its surrounding forest commons.
“Our village authority imposed a blanket ban on hunting within Shirui territory for three years, from 2024 to 2026,” said Soyo A Wungsek, chief of Shirui Aze, describing the community-led initiative. Only a few traditional trapping practices were permitted in exceptional circumstances, such as protecting jhum crops from damage by wildlife.
Initially, conservation relied almost entirely on collective trust and community participation. There were no formal systems for monitoring or enforcement. Nor did the community have the scientific expertise or resources needed to undertake systematic ecological surveys and document biodiversity. As a result, the first two years of the initiative produced little quantifiable evidence of its impact.
That began to change in 2025, when Patrick Shangh, a resident of Shirui and project director and co-founder of ENFOGAL (Environmental Force at Grassroot Level), a local conservation organisation, began installing camera traps in the conservation area. Driven largely by his personal commitment, Patrick installed the camera traps he had received through a grant from Idea Wild, a US-based organisation.
Combining science with traditional conservation
Patrick’s aim was to quantify the village’s conservation efforts and raise awareness by sharing photographs and video footages from the camera traps. With limited knowledge of the forest commons, he turned to Pamreithing for help in identifying suitable locations for setting up the equipment.
In many indigenous communities that have taken up conservation, former hunters play an important role. Their intimate knowledge of animal behaviour and forest landscapes makes them valuable guides to wildlife monitoring. Before the conservation initiative began, an expedition up the ravine to the ridge would often keep Pamreithing and his fellow hunters away for two or three days. The skills he had acquired through years of tracking and stalking game have since proved invaluable in identifying animal trails and locations where wildlife is most likely to pass.
So far, Patrick and Pamreithing have documented 15 mammal species and identified 321 bird species in the village's forest commons. This is the first systematic documentation of wildlife in the community-managed forests, according to Patrick. He hopes it will provide a starting point for more comprehensive biodiversity surveys in Shirui in the years ahead.
The camera-trap footage, particularly of mammals, which Patrick has shared on his Facebook page, has surprised both the Shirui community and a wider online audience. Within the relatively small area covered by the camera traps, the team recorded several threatened species, including the dhole, classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List; the Assam macaque, classified as near threatened; and the vulnerable Blyth's tragopan, Mrs Hume's pheasant, the Asiatic black bear, the grey-sided thrush, the red serow, the Himalayan serow and flying squirrels, among other mammals and birds.
What the camera traps reveals
“The first reaction when people watch the camera-trap videos is amazement that such majestic animals also inhabit our forests,” Patrick said. “Some have even accused me of manipulating the footage with AI because they never expected to see endangered animals such as dholes in these parts of the forest.”
By then, we had reached the first camera-trap location. More than a month had passed since the cameras were last checked, and we were eager to see what they had recorded. Pamreithing, however, tempered our expectations. It had rained heavily in recent weeks, he pointed out. “Animals move around less when it rains so much,” he said.
The first camera yielded nothing. Its recordings showed only rain-triggered images and forest foliage swaying in the wind. The next five cameras were equally unproductive. Disheartened, we made our way to the final location: a clearing where two mountain slopes converged, dotted with scattered groves of dwarf bamboo.
There, Pamreithing pointed to a flattened patch of undergrowth among ferns and wild grasses. “This looks like a bird's roost, or perhaps an animal has rested here. I'm sure we'll find something on this camera,” he said, turning towards the device facing the clearing.
Patrick switched on the camera. Its display flickered to life, showing hundreds of coloured lines and black spots. Rainwater had seeped inside and damaged the screen. He retrieved the memory card and loaded the recordings onto his laptop.
The first clip showed a lone dhole walking casually across the frame. Another showed a pair of tragopans pecking at the ground. Then came another recording of the dhole, this time playing with a companion in the very patch of flattened vegetation Pamreithing had pointed out earlier.
“The repeated sightings on different dates suggest that these dholes are not merely passing through but living in this forest,” Patrick said, smiling as he watched the footage. “This is evidence of what community conservation can achieve. For years, we heard stories about these animals. Now, seeing endangered and vulnerable species here gives us hope that our wildlife and forest commons are recovering.”
Pamreithing shared his excitement. In all his years as a hunter, he said, he had heard stories about dholes but had never encountered one.
Yet the excitement was tempered by a sobering thought: years of conservation could be undone in a matter of days. The community's three-year hunting ban, introduced in 2024, was nearing its end.
From a hunting ban to lasting protection
“Let's hope this conservation efforts are not undone in a few days and that the initiative continues,” Patrick said, as he reset the camera trap before we began the long descent down the ravine.
A few weeks later, the village authority took up the question of wildlife and habitat conservation at its half-yearly assembly. It decided to extend the initiative for another three years. “The village council unanimously decided to continue the conservation effort after seeing the impact of the first three years across our territory,” said Soyo A Wungsek. He added that the village intended to take a more proactive approach in the years ahead.
The next phase, covering 2027-29, will involve the Shirui Youth Club and the Shirui Katamnao Long (Students' League) in monitoring, enforcement and documentation. Chuimaran Shangh, president of the Shirui Katamnao Long, said the new phase should be more than an extension of the existing initiative. “The 2027-29 phase should represent a transition towards a community-led, evidence-based and sustainable system of wildlife conservation,” he said.
Patrick’s hope is that Shirui will eventually become a self-sustaining model village, where conservation goes hand in hand with sustainable livelihoods and ecotourism.
This article was produced under the Promise of Commons fellowship