State of Forest Report, 2019: Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram have lost huge traditional bamboo covering areas

Several states in India’s Northeast have been constantly losing their traditional bamboo covering areas, data of the State of India’s Forest Report, 2019 has revealed. The region has unique opportunities of to bamboo resources flourish economically, as it is home to wide diversity of bamboo species, the report states.

Arunachal Pradesh, the state which tops the list of bamboo varieties with 41 species, for example, has lost huge size of its traditional bamboo coverage area since 2011. Between a period of 2011 and 2017, its bamboo covering area has come down from 16,083 square kilometre to 15, 125 sq kilometre. It further decreased to 14,981 sq km in 2019, according to India State of Forest Report, 2019. The state has an 83,743 sq km geographical area.

India has altogether 136 bamboo species in different states.

http://fsi.nic.in/isfr19/vol1/chapter8.pdf

Mizoram, another bamboo rich state with 15 species too, has shown an alarmingly decrease in bamboo coverage areas between 2011 and 2017. It has a geographical area of 21,081 sq km, of which total bamboo coverage area was 9,245 sq.km in 2011. This was drastically reduced to 3,367 sq km till 2017. However, there has been an increase of 209 sq. km, during 2019. This has resulted in increasing of its bamboo coverage area up to 3,476 sq. Km during this year.

Photo- Indukalpa Bharali 

Sikkim, another bio-diversity hot spot and a geographical area of 7,096 sq km, lost 628 sq. km of its bamboo coverage area between 2011 and 2017. During this period the area reduced from 1,181 sq.km to 553 sq km. However, there has been a substantial increase between 2017 to 2019 and the bamboo coverage are of the state went up to 1,176 sq.km.

Meghalaya, with a 22,429 sq.km geographical area has shown an increase of 1,150 sq.km km bamboo coverage area between 2011 and 2017. During this period its bamboo coverage are went up from 4,793 sq.km to 5,943 sq. Km. However, there has been a alarming decrease of 533 sq.km in 2019.

Manipur with a total geographical area of 22,327 sq. km too, has shown a similar trend of increase of 1,384 bamboo coverage area between 2011 and 2017 and a drastic fall in 2019. During this period the bamboo coverage of the state was 9,303 (2011), 10,687 (2017) and 9,903 (2019) sq km.

During this period Assam(78,438 sq km.) and Tripura (10,491 sq.km) has shown a constant increase of bamboo coverage area. In Assam the bamboo coverage area has increased from 7,238 in 2011 to 10,525 sq. Km in 2019. It Tripura the area has increased from 3,246 sq. Km (2011) to 3,783 sq. km(2019). State of India’s Forest Report, 2019: Bamboo covering areas ( sq. Km)

Despite the constant loss of bamboo habitat areas Arunachal Pradesh still tops the list of presence of bamboo in different classified areas with 417 pure bamboo areas, 3,389 dense bamboo areas, and 10,904 scattered areas. Nagaland has 227 pure bamboo area, 1,137 dense bamboo area and 2,730 scattered bamboo area. Assam has 201 pure, 2,350 dense and 7,664 scattered bamboo areas. Mizoram and Manipur do not have pure bamboo areas. In case of regeneration Manipur tops the list og 663 areas, followed by Assam with 307 areas and Arunachal Pradesh with 271 areas. Regeneration was nil in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura in 2019.

State of India’s Forest Report, 2019: Bamboo in different classified forest areas

Arunachal Pradesh also tops the list in the country of having green clumps in recorded forest areas with 4,869 green clumps. Assam recorded the second position amongst all states of the country with 3,082 green clumps.

State of India’s Forest Report, 2019: Bamboo clumps

The Operational Guidelines of National Bamboo Mission, revised June, 2019 June, 2019 has adopted a number steps to increase bamboo coverage areas that include research and development, plantation development, establishment of nurseries including hi-tech, big and small nurseries, raising new plantations, extension, education and skill development, micro irrigation, post harvest storage and treatment facilities, promotion and development of infrastructure for bamboo market, bamboo market research, incubation centres, export of bamboo based products etc.

Operational Guidelines of National Bamboo Mission, revised June, 2019 : infrastructure

Although the picture of nurseries set up is impressive, there are only 2 tissue-culture units in the region. The report has also has stated that the North east has 26 Bamboo Bazars amd 46 retail outlets in north-eastern states.

North-eastern states and West Bengal alone cover over 50 per cent of total bamboo coverage areas of the country.

Nezine Bureau