Our Correspondent
Lumami, May 25
Biodiversity is at stake if the local populations continue with the trend of unsustainable means for development. The state of Nagaland and her people is losing a lot of their basic resources and species, which are essential mean s for sustenance, an academician has warned. Dr. Neizo Puro of the department of Botany, of Nagaland University (Lumami campus), stated the caution while interacting with media persons during the sidelines of an event that was conducted on Friday in the campus. International Day for Biological Diversity was observed in Nagaland University on May 25.
“Wide varieties of wild vegetation including the edibles wild vegetables will slowly extinct or extinguished within a gap of 10 years. There is a great threat, if these patterns of unsustainable biological diversity continue,” Dr. Puro said.
He said that achieving biodiversity for sustainable development was not merely and academic and economic activity but a concern that would need practical and collaborative efforts. “We cannot achieve positive outcome through collaboration in one perspective; it has to be holistic through academic and economic activities. It has to be consented from everyone, especially in our unique Naga landholding system, consent is very important,” he said.
The professor also disclosed that traditional ‘jhum’ (slash-and-burn) cultivation is the main cause of degradation of the local biodiversity resources. He he disclosed that field researched on jhum cultivation had been undertaken in some areas of villages around Nagaland. They found that the Jhum cycle (the period of years of disuse after cultivation and period of return to cultivation) has also increased.
“Earlier the cycle of Jhum cultivation came around after every 8 years or more in the same area. However the cycle has increased by three or more years,” he said, adding the increase in cycle was definitely because of urban migration from the rural areas.
Regarding the various step implemented by state for sustainable development of biodiversity, Dr. Neizo Puro said policies and law enacted by the government were good but implementation and monitoring the process remains something required. “There is a need for a mechanism that regulate, implement and monitor the policies and law enacted by the state,” he said.
The professor of botany also asserted that community conservation areas in Nagaland can offer an approach for the government to implement conservation policies for conserving of local biodiversity for sustainable development. However, Dr. Puro lamented that community conservation forests were ‘not very effective because local people don’t derive any benefit from it’.
‘If such community conservation forests are converted into eco-tourism (facilities) there would be a potential beneficial outcome for both the parties’, he explained.
When queried about alternative approaches for sustainable development besides slash-and-burn cultivation methods, he suggested terrace or permanent farming methods, alternative cropping systems and non-timber forest products. “We need to explore and develop markets were everyone benefits from one another,” he said.
Head of department of Botany Professor CR Deb, who has undertaken research on orchid species found in Nagaland, disclosed that they have collected and documented 450 orchid species from the state. The plethora of species of orchids will be the second highest in the northeastern Indian regions, he said. The professor added that development in flora culture industries in the state can offer ‘huge benefits’ for the local people.
Nagaland is very rich in bio-diversity, both flora and fauna. Even today some pockets of forests are covered with gigantic trees, where sun- rays cannot penetrate. Due to reckless and uncontrolled cutting of trees for timber, firewood, continued Jhum cultivation and annual fire in vast tracts of land, forests got degraded and barren, which accelerated diminishing of the most of the original characteristics of the forests.
Though geographically being a small state, Nagaland has several types of forests, mainly because the state is mostly Tropical, and the altitudes range from a few hundred meters to about four thousand meters. The major types of forests found in the state, as per the classification of Champion & Seth, are as follows.
• Northern Tropical Wet Evergreen Forests.
• Northern Tropical Semi- Evergreen Forests
• Northern Sub-Tropical Broad Leave Wet Hill Forests
• Northern Sub-Tropical Pine Forests
• Northern Montana Wet Temperate Forests
• Temperate Forests
Although Nagaland has a geographical area of only 16, 579 sq km, it harbors very rich and unique biodiversity with the state being a part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot. There are 2, 431 species of angiosperms (flowering plants) in the state. Gymnosperms (non- flowering) also register their presences with nine species, a large number of these plant species being endemic to the state or the north eastern part of India.
The fauna of the state has not been comprehensively documented, as such; the exact figure for the species diversity of animals in the state is not available, according to a pamphlet of the department of Forests, Ecology, Environment & Wildlife. “However the richness of animal diversity in the State can be gauged by the presence of many species endemic to the State that fall in the Rare Endangered or Threatened category of the IUCN,” it says.
The state boasts the presence of the tallest rhododendron in the world, the tallest rice plant, rare orchids such as the Tiger orchid, Cymbidium tigrinum, Bulbophyllum rothschildianum and rare threatened animals such as the Hoolok gibbon, the Blythe’s Tragopan, Mrs Hume’s bar tailed pheasant etc.
The pamphlet also states that given the natural wealth of the state, the rate at which this is being lost is alarming. According to the latest report of the Forest Survey of India, the loss of forest cover in the state is 201 sq kilometers between 2005-2007.
The major cause of this loss can be attributed to the prevailing practice of jhum cultivation in the State, the pamphlet said adding “This coupled with other causes such as deforestation, urbanization and climate change can have a devastating effect on the biodiversity in the State.”
The presence of a large number of endemic and rare species in the state makes the biodiversity of the State very susceptible to any change in the environment. “There is now broad scientific and political consensus that we have entered a period of unavoidable and unprecedented climate change,” the pamphlet said adding that it impacts on biodiversity is already measurable. (Source: Agencies)
