The introductory training of officers of the state’s Agri & Allied departments on Participatory Land Use Planning (PLUP) and the subsequent state level consultative workshop held in Kohima on August 22 and 23, highlighting ideal sustainable uses of land resources to improve the livelihoods of local population through PLUP, had resulted in recommending that PLUP and Land Use Committees (LUCs) be legally institutionalised in Nagaland.
While agriculture remains the mainstay of Nagaland with 60% of the population and 68.03% of the state’s work force engaged in this occupation, unsystematic land use patterns and consequential decline in land productivity are raising the concern of agriculturists as well as environmentalists.
The key causes of degradation of the forest ecosystem in Nagaland and the associated services it generates are related to the practice of shifting cultivation (also called jhum), the most widely practiced form of agriculture by our tribal communities. The jhum cycle that was once 14 years or more, is now said to have declined to 6 years or less in many places in the state and this shortened jhum cycle is putting pressure on resources and productivity of land. The logical corollaries are increase in level of soil erosion, hydrological imbalance and forest degradation, all of which cause reduction in yields, insecurity of food sources, biodiversity loss and deforestation.
This system of cultivation, coupled with high rainfall, is cited as the main reason for heavy erosion resulting in the loss of an alarming quantity of top soil, to the extent of 40 tonnes of top soil per hectare per year.
In view of the deteriorating fertility of land and low yield, increase in population, and demand driven crop production, there is increasing tendency for jhum farmers to intensify pressures on land, natural resources and forest ecosystems and the major challenge that the state faces today is how to adapt land use and production system while also maintaining its ecological sustainability.
This is where the Participatory Land Use Planning comes in. An offshoot of a Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-state government project launched in 2009, PLUP is one of the intervention strategies to address land degradation in jhum cultivation areas in the state through sustainable land and ecosystem management (SLEM) principle, keeping in mind the ecological concerns, socio-economic needs, and traditional sensitivities of local communities. The project covered the districts of Mokokchung, Wokha and Mon.
PLUP was introduced with the objective to develop, demonstrate and upscale sustainable land management practices for the conservation of jhum lands across the project districts through an ecosystem approach to address land degradation, livelihood improvement of the target community and fostering ecological security in the region.
The project was reported to have developed and demonstrated PLUP across 35 project areas, setting up as many dedicated Land Use Committees (LUCs). These LUCs are arguably the first community planning at landscape level in the state, involving various stakeholders including women, in the view that no approach would be complete unless the group that constitutes more than half of the agricultural workforce is made a major part of community-based management plan.
As per the UNDP Nagaland, the project empowered local communities, especially women by involving them in decision-making process regarding land use while respecting traditional values, and encouraged local farmers to adopt practices to improve soil fertility and promote livelihoods to attain food security and self sufficiency.
The inclusion of women in local LUCs was considered a propelling force in empowering them to contribute in larger decision making processes in the village land use planning process, thereby also promoting gender equality at the grassroots.
Generally speaking, PLUP appears to be a powerful social tool for sustainable land management, capacity building, gender empowerment, securing land tenure and conflict resolution over resources, and in doing so, providing useful evidence for the application of the SLEM approach across the state. And while the state’s heads and officers of Agri & Allied departments have endorsed in principle to propagate and advocate for implementation and institutionalising PLUP and LUCs in the state, let us hope that the concept does not end up being a mere rhetoric one.
