Bamboo spells trouble for N-E again

Memories of bamboo flowering in the region are still very fresh. The last gregarious flowering of bamboo in Mizoram, Tripura and the Barak valley of Assam was recorded in 1959, which was followed by a severe famine in those areas.

In the 1960s, it had set off a major social disturbance in the Mizo hills that eventually led to the creation of the Mizo National Front (MNF), a group that fought the Indian State for nearly two decades.

The Rain Forest Research Institute estimated that gregarious flowering of bamboo will occur between 2004 and 2007 in an area of 18,000 sq km, and warned that about 26 million tonne of bamboo will go waste. More importantly, it said, only 10 million tonne will be available in accessible areas, and an immediate strategy was required to be chalked up to extract the entire stock.

While the North-East has a wide variety of bamboo species growing both in the wild and under systematic cultivation, it is mostly the muli bamboo (Melocanna baccifera) that will flower. ‘‘Due to ensuing flowering of melocanna baccifera, these bamboos may cause environmental, psychological and social problem, if not utilised in time,’’ experts, who participated in a workshop organised by the Institute recently, warned.

Over 70 delegates from different sectors including industries, NGOs and scientific organisations from India as well as from abroad participated in this expert consultation and presented suggestions to cope with the problem of bamboo flowering in an organised way.

Warning that the epicentre of flowering will again be Mizoram, experts have called for immediate resource survey and mapping of bamboo and preparation of a bamboo flowering database involving international and national bodies like the International Bamboo and Rattan Institute and Forest Survey of India.

They have also called for an immediate strategy for extraction and evacuation of bamboo involving improvement of highways and exploring scope for shipping bamboo to Andhra Pradesh and Orissa via waterways through Bangladesh. Other measures suggested include:

n Asking Hindustan Paper Corporation Ltd to first consume flowered stocks by suspending consumption of other species during flowering, and

n Establishment of mini mechanical pulping mills at strategic locations for long-term space-effective storage and economic transportation.

There was also an immediate need to explore export potential for processed bamboo items like high-density pulp, mats, chips etc instead of simple raw material export, the experts said.