DNA Edit: How green was the valley?

The steady decline in forest cover in India’s Northeast has been a deep and abiding concern since the dawn of the new millennium.

The loss between 2011 and now, though substantial, is preceded by decades of deforestation due to the clearing of land by migrants and local people and heavy demand for timber from Bangladesh and India’s urban centres.

What has been consistent over the years is the lack of a policy framework designed to encourage indigenous forest management decisions, integrate past and present laws to support community forest stewardship and engage with national policies to support democratisation and decentralisation.

Till a few years ago, thanks to remote and inaccessible locations, the rich biodiversity of the region had survived the aggression of development agenda and human greed.

With rapid progress in infrastructure, reckless exploitation of natural resources has now become easy. The Forest Survey of India and Environment Ministry felt shifting cultivation to be one of the major causes for loss in green cover.

It is an integral part in tribal life and has a direct bearing on the sociocultural systems of tribes. Jhum cultivation has destroyed large swathes of dense vegetation, primarily because of repeated use of the same stretch within a span of three to six years.

To wean away farmers, who have been for generations engaged in this farming practice, is an arduous task. It is only recently that tribes have taken to alternative practices in the form of integrated farming, poultry, piggery, terrace cultivation, fishery, bee-keeping, tea, rubber and floriculture.

The key to saving the flora and fauna is developing awareness among the locals and making them stakeholders in the process of rejuvenation and restoration.

At a time when India’s forest cover has recorded an impressive rise, we cannot allow Northeast to lose its crowning jewel.