Senapati Forest Division conducts Participatory Rural Appraisal at Saranamai village to map resources for Barak watershed rejuvenation under CAMPA.
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IMPHAL — In an effort to rejuvenate degraded areas and improve the livelihood of the people around the Barak watershed, the Senapati Forest Division carried out a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) exercise at Saranamai village, Senapati, under the Barak catchment areas on Thursday.
The exercise was a pilot initiative to map the resources, land use patterns, wealth rankings, matrix ranking, timeline and SWOT analysis of the village.
The baseline data would help in formulating a detailed plan of action under the new Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change The division plans to cover all the villages falling under the Barak watershed in the days to come.
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It may be mentioned that the Barak river is of great importance due to its ecological, hydrological, environmental, religious-cultural, spiritual, and economic aspects in and around the Senapati district.
The Barak river, with its origin at Liyai Khullen village in Senapati district, flows through Manipur and further drains to the plains of the lower part of Assam and finally into the Bay of Bengal as the river Meghana in Bangladesh. The Barak basin is a part of the greater Ganga-Brahmaputra river system and is the second-largest basin in northeast India. It has several tributaries, such as Makru, Irang, and Tuivai.
The significance of the Barak basin and its tributaries, along with its catchment area, has been undermined of late due to various increasing threats such as forest fire, floods, bank line erosion, deforestation, degradation, shifting cultivation, soil erosion in catchment areas, landslides, and lack of awareness.
To mitigate these issues, an integrated and multi-tiered approach for rejuvenating the river and its watershed through forestry intervention is required. To spread awareness about the importance of the river, the 4th edition of the State Level Barak Festival was held at the Zeilipou area in Senapati district last month.