Why in news? Nagaland Forest Department (NFD) announced the re-wilding of ten captive-bred juveniles of Asian Giant Tortoise into Nagaland’s protected forest Ntangki National Park.

Highlights

• The process was done in collaboration with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and Wildlife Conservation Society India (WCSI).
• This first monitored rewilding of the critically endangered tortoise in India comes after over five years of conservation breeding efforts
• Nagaland Zoological Park has the highest number of Asian Giant Tortoise population in India holding over 110 successful hatchlings

Long-term Asian Giant Tortoise Population Recovery Program

• Engages with target local communities in the priority areas through awareness program, and community involvement, for sensitization against the hunting of released animals, and protection of important habitats,
• Strengthening the participatory conservation initiatives and fostering sense of environmental stewardship in the identified sites inhabited by ethnic tribes having age long tradition of protecting their local habitats as Indigenous Community Conserved Areas (ICCA).

Asian forest tortoise

• Also known commonly as the Mountain tortoise, is a species of tortoise
• Endemic to Southeast Asia.
• Distribution : Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
• IUCN Status: Critically endangered
• is the only tortoise which lays its eggs above ground in a nest, which the female constructs of leaf litter

Ntangki National Park

• Location: Nagaland, India.
• Fauna : Rare hoolock gibbon, golden langur, hornbill, Asian palm civet, black stork, tiger, white-breasted kingfisher, monitor lizard, python and sloth bear.
• The name “Ntangki” is derived from the Zeme dialect of the Zeliangrong Nagas.