Aizawl, May 6: The primitive slash and burn method of cultivation, or jhumming, in Mizoram has led to a massive destruction of forests and innumerable forest fires causing loss of human lives.
Aizawl: The primitive slash and burn method of cultivation or jhumming in Mizoram has led to massive destruction of forests and innumerable forest fires.
The state forest department has attributed the disappearance of large tracts of forest every year to jhum fires that normally take place in this tiny state between February and March.
Hundreds of millions of indigenous women and men throughout the world manage their forests and crops sustainably, and in this way contribute to the sequestration of greenhouse gases. However, maintaining control over their land and forests in the face of colonial and corporate attempts to nationalise or privatise them has been a historic struggle.
The traditional slash-and-burn cultivation in hilly areas of northeast India is known as jhum cultivation. It is often considered responsible for causing soil erosion, triggering landslide, flash floods and thereby degrading the primary land resource. The productivity is also reported to be very low.
The Garo, Khasi and Jaintia Hills region, with its unique landscape, climatic phenomenon of heavy cloud cover and torrential rainfall, and agricultural richness involving the majority of the population, has been proposed as another National Agricultural Biodiversity Heritage Site based on six indices.
In the northeast region of India, the societal water use is less than 5 per cent of the existing potential. This leads to vast devastation, poor crop yields, constrained livelihood options, malnutrition and drudgery. The region and the households witness `water poverty
Primitive tribal communities like the Chuktia Bhunjias living in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Orissa continue to practise traditional agriculture using bio-cultural resources. Policymakers must learn from them in order to challenge the conventional model of agricultural production and food insecurity, as also about how to make development sustainable.
Kohima, Feb 18: The Nagaland Government has noted random burning of jungles in various parts of the State recently and threatened to withhold all government grants if such cases are found in any village.
To measure impact of ecological change in Chittagon Hill Tracts after the installation od dam Kaptai in 1955 on siltation, Bangladesh Water Development Board has conducted siltation study several times from 1978.
