Afforestation: An option for Combating Desertification
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008In the contemporary global milieu with colossal industrial revolution, cultural imperialism, and quantum bound in technology have increasingly estranged the human being from its natural environment and checking environmental degradation. One of the domino effect is incessant land degradation that in long run may lead to desertification. Though in recent past, desertification is not evident in north east India, but land degradation has been recorded in all the states of the region including Arunachal Pradesh, due to extensive exploitations of timbers and non-timber forest produces, and land resources for shifting agriculture.
Traditional communities and alien population inhabiting the region needs to learn a gigantic example from global desertification, and have to be in a genuine partnership in combating global desertification initiated by United Nation. Over the years, desertification occurs mainly in semi-arid areas bordering on deserts but can not be denied in north eastern India, if land degradation and bio-resources exploitation remain unchecked. It is matter of fact that some 10 to 20% of dry-lands are already degraded, and the ongoing desertification threatens the world’s poorest populations.
At this point of time, it is important for all section of society to know the immediate causes and measure to check the desertification. The main cause of desertification is the removal of vegetation, which in turn leads to unprotected, dry soil surfaces, which may blow away with the wind or are washed away by flash floods, leaving infertile lower soil layers that bake in the sun and become an unproductive hardpan. However, the other factors that can trigger desertification are the overgrazing, cultivation in marginal lands (i.e. lands on which there is a high risk of crop failure and a very low economic return), growing populations that increase pressure on fragile land resources and inappropriate agricultural technologies.
The factors leading to desertification are extremely evident in the north eastern India in general, Arunachal Pradesh in particular. For example removal of vegetation is a cultural practice in the region particularly for jhum cultivation, which is the livelihood sustenance of the upland traditional communities. In olden period it was sustainable due to long fallow age, however in recent past shortening of fallow age make vulnerable to soil degradation and desertification. The declining of forest cover in some state has already been recorded by the Forest Survey of India. During a decade (1991-2001), Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya have lost nearly 802, 819, 844, 458 and 49 sqkm of forest respectively.
Scientific communities across the world have expressed concern over the desertification, which is one of the greatest environmental challenges today and constitutes a major barrier to meeting basic human needs. Estimates suggest that 35% of the earth’s land surface is at risk, and the livelihoods of 850 million people are directly affected. Nearly 75% of the world’s drier lands (45,000,000 sqkm) are affected by desertification, and every year 6,000,000 hectares of agricultural land are lost and become virtual desert. The United Nations Environment Programme has estimated that 4.5 billion dollars will be needed to be spent every year for the next twenty years to prevent the process of desertification.
Effective prevention of desertification requires management and policy approaches that promote sustainable resource use. Major policy interventions and changes in management approaches, both at local and global levels, are needed in order to prevent, stop or reverse desertification. The creation of a “culture of prevention” that promotes alternative livelihoods and conservation strategies can go a long way toward protecting the fragile north eastern region of India from desertification. It requires a drastic change in policy intervention and government attitude. Building on traditional ecological knowledge evolved through informal experimentation over centuries and amalgamation of location specific scientific innovations will be the possible option left to prevent desertification, which requires integration of policy planning, technologies and active participation of local communities.
To conclude it would not be incorrect to say that if we do not act now tomorrow may be too late. True that desertification in our part of the north east India is not an immediate danger. But the extent of environmental degradation that is taking place in the region may invite desertification in time to come. Lets wake up to the call and make the globally acknowledged biodiversity hotspots region and land of diverse traditional communities be a desert free world.
Meanwhile, it would be worth mentioning here that the North East Unit of G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment & Development (GBPIHED) based at Itanagar in it’s endeavor has taken up research and development activities to scientifically evaluate, monitor and transfer a number of low cost and environmentally sustainable technologies that are based on agriculture in the mountain ecosystems. Jhum (shifting) cultivation, the most debated cause of deforestation, has been given special importance and technologies like Contour Hedgerow Farming and Modified Jhum System have been successfully tested wherein the agronomic yield and ecological sustainability have remarkably improved. The Unit has been providing training on these technologies to a number of stakeholders of the Northeastern states including Arunachal Pradesh to make the shifting agro-ecosystem sustainable thereby reduce deforestation and land degradation. On the occasion of World Day to Combat Desertification under the theme “Desertification and Climate Change -One Global Challenge”, GBPIHED, Itanagar organized a plantation drive on 17th June 2007 with active participation of the villagers in the identified jhum fallow lands at selected villages. Some medicinally important plant sapling particularly of Neem (Azadirachta indica) and Agar (Aquilaria agallocha) are planted on the occasion to encourage the villagers for afforestation with cash generation plant species that may help to create agro-forestry type human modified ecosystem for sustainable development.
[Courtesy: The Arunachal Times. 2007;19(12)]
Tags: Arunachal Pradesh, bio-resources exploitation, environmental challenges, jhum cultivation, land degradation, policy interventions, sustainable technologies., traditional communities, traditional ecological knowledge
