Using snakes as influencers: An environmental campaign in Mizoram

In March 2024, we started Save the Riparian, a campaign to clean the gorges and rivers in different parts of Aizawl city in Mizoram. The idea was to stop rivers such as Tlawng from being contaminated with waste, because these rivers and their streams are the primary water sources for the communities living in the area. 

The campaign is entirely volunteer-driven. While it was initiated by my six friends and me, hundreds of young people have joined us since. As the word spread, cabinet ministers, MLAs, and even the chief minister participated in our cleaning drives. 

During the initial phases of our campaign, we focused on mobilising people and ridding these water bodies of solid waste such as clothes, plastic, syringes, sanitary pads, and diapers, which we found in abundance. Gradually, after a few months, we realised that we had to focus on awareness as well, not just in Aizawl but also in the districts and villages of Mizoram because rivers are interconnected. However, these were lofty goals for a campaign that had only recently raised some money from local businesses, individuals, and government schemes.

There were travel expenses and the cost of running the programmes, but our bigger challenge was getting people in the villages out of their homes to talk to them about solid waste management. We considered reaching out to popular singers in the state for performances, but we couldn’t afford their fee. Then, suddenly, we had the realisation that we have something even more interesting that our people would throng to see: snakes.

The founding members of Save the Riparian are self-proclaimed ‘snake enthusiasts’. Two of us study zoology at Mizoram University, and our campaign president is a well-known snake rescuer with a large online and offline following. Over the years, he has rescued snakes and facilitated their adoption through the forest department and the university. Leveraging these networks, we obtained permission to bring the snakes into the villages.

We found that people are especially interested in venomous snakes such as monocled cobras, king cobras, and pythons. These varieties managed to attract huge crowds, and made it easy for us to talk about waste and its impact on all of our lives.

Our people are both curious and scared of snakes because they are omnipresent in their surroundings. We explained how discarded waste attracts rats which in turn attract snakes, making the impact of poor waste management instantly relatable to everyone. This approach proved far more effective than simply asking people to step out so we could talk to them about garbage.     

Lal Muansanga is the secretary of Save the Riparian.

As told to Rodingliana, IDR Northeast Fellow 2024­–25.

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