Apatani tribal land where rice and fish share the same terrace — and indie music fills pine-valley nights every October
Ziro is a small valley town in Arunachal Pradesh at around 1,500 metres, but the valley it sits in is one of India's most unusual agricultural landscapes — the Apatani people have farmed it for centuries using a system where wet-rice fields and fish ponds coexist in the same paddy, a sustainable polyculture that UNESCO nominated for World Heritage status in 2014. The surrounding pine-forested hills become the backdrop for the annual Ziro Music Festival (October), which brings South Asian indie and folk musicians to perform under the stars in one of India's most unexpected festival settings. T…
Ziro Valley has been home to the Apatani people for centuries — one of India's most self-sufficient tribal communities, famed for their intricate wet-rice and fish-farming system and for a series of traditions unique to this valley: nose plugs (yapung huulo) worn by women as a historical deterrent against abduction, face tattoos (tiipe), and a governance system of elected village councils predating Indian independence. The valley was first formally visited by British political agents in 1897 and briefly served as a trans-Himalayan trade route between India and Tibet. Arunachal Pradesh itself…