The Northeast

Cloud forests adorn the wooded slopes, mighty rivers cut through its valleys and primal vegetation still survives undisturbed in large tracts here. Gibbons and birds of many hues bring to mind images of Africa and South America and scientists confirm that only a fraction of this diversity has even been recorded. Much of this land forms the catchment of the mighty Brahmaputra river whose flow controls the destiny of virtually all who live in its sweep. Contiguous with the Gangetic Plain, the northeast comprises six of the famous 'Seven Sisters' - the states of Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. The 'Seventh Sister', Arunachal Pradesh, falls in the Himalaya. The total area of the Northeast is 171,423 sq. km., or about five per cent of India's land area. Nearly 40 per cent of the area of this zone, amounting to just under 70,000 sq. km. is presently forested.

The Northeast is Verrier Elwin country. In the early half of this century, the famed writer-sociologist lived and travelled amidst the tribal societies which peopled the forests and whose lives he documented for posterity. From his works it becomes apparent that these were among the most peaceful people ever to have inhabited the Earth. Shifting cultivation was then the most scientific way available to such people to conduct agriculture. The jungles were extensive and when societies moved to newer sites, old locations regenerated in 20 or 30 years. Today the practice of shifting cultivation continues, but the forest area has been reduced to such an extent that the cycles have been reduced to as few as five years. Naturally, the soils now get rapidly depleted and natural regeneration is impossible. This contributes greatly to the demise of forests today, but this was not why the forests shrank in the first place.

The real bane of the area has been the merciless, shortsighted exploitation of its forests by vested commercial interests. Plywood and paper industries and uncontrolled clear-felling for tea estates took their lethal toll soon after independence. Timber merchants, unfettered by colonial rules, virtually controlled the financial throttle of all political activities in the north-east for decades raping the forest wealth without let or hindrance. First the softwoods vanished and then the rot began to set into the hardwoods. An outcry of protest from conservationists and soil biologists around the seventies led to some kind of truce, but even today the single largest threat to the viability of the northeast stems from an inability to enforce forest protection. Meanwhile, the already unstable slopes release countless tons of silt and sand into the Brahmaputra making it shallower and, consequently, malevolent in times of spate.

Biology of the Northeast

It is believed that the northward moving landmass of the Indian peninsula, after breaking away from Gondwanaland, collided with the main Asian landmass in the northeastern zone. The area therefore became a changeover region between the Indian, Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese biogeographical regions and still displays phenomenal diversity. This zone is also the meeting point of the Himalaya with the Indian plains. Being so uniquely located, it is hardly surprising that the northeast is amongst the most biodiversity rich regions of the world. Ironically, the northeast also happens to house the largest number of endangered species out of all the zones in India!

While the Gangetic Plain has been almost totally brought under the plough, extensive stretches of natural, wet-alluvial flood-plains can still be seen in the northeast. The Brahmaputra valley, a continuation of the Gangetic plain of Bengal in the west, is the dominating feature of this zone, its periphery being dotted with moist grasslands, swamplands and forests. It is in this region that protected areas such as Manas and Kaziranga are found. These hold appreciable populations of herbivores including rhinoceros, wild buffalo, gaur, swamp deer, hog deer, pygmy hog, elephant and the rare and endangered hispid hare. The valley is also a vital migratory passage for waterfowl.

Biologically, the Northeast can be divided into two sub-zones - the extensive flood plains, grasslands and swamps to the north and south of the Brahmaputra, which cover 65,000 sq. km. (about 38 per cent) of the northeast; and the highly forested Assam Hills, which extend over 106,209 sq. km. Closer to the Brahmaputra, the alluvial grasslands and swamps are moist and dependent upon the course of the river at different times of the year. Flooding during the monsoons covers huge expanses of these plains, forcing much of the wildlife, and people, to disperse higher up. When the catchment forests were intact, such flooding was a boon as it deposited rich silt on the land, which promoted vegetal growth, both natural and cultivated. Further away from the river, the grasslands become drier and there is a gradual transition into deciduous woodlands and lush, evergreen forests. The forests in the eastern parts of the Brahmaputra valley are more evergreen than those in the west. Further, the great river forms a highly effective barrier, influencing the dispersal of several species of plants and animals. Shorea assamica and Dipterocarpus macrocarpus, for instance, do not extend to the north of the river. Among animals, the stump-tailed macaque and the hoolock gibbon can be seen only to the south while the well-known golden langur, hispid hare and pygmy hog are restricted to areas north of the river.

Though referred to as the Assam Hills, barely 13,000 sq. km. of this sub-zone lies in Assam proper, the greater area spreading over the five states of Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. Technically, the Assam Hills begins with the transition from the alluvial vallev lowlands to the much-varied wooded highlands. It is here in the diverse habitat and climatic conditions that the richest faunal and floral communities are found. The Khasi-Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya are, in fact, regarded as one of Asia's richest botanical treasure troves. There are more species of small carnivores and of birds such as hombills and laughing thrushes in the Assam Hills than anywhere else in the world.

Geologically, the Assam Hills form a diverse hillrange system. Biologically, however, there is little variation, largely because of a well-marked continuity in the vegetation structure and composition as also perhaps, due to a lack of any formidable barrier such as the Brahmaputra. Altitudinally, the Assam Hills range from just under 300 metres towards the southern reaches of the ancient Meghalaya plateau to nearly 2,000 metres in Meghalaya. The highest elevation of the Assam Hills subzone is 3,200 metres on the Indo-Burma border, in Manipur state. The vegetation, influenced somewhat by the altitude, though not as much perhaps as in the Himalaya, is predominantly evergreen and semi-evergreen, changing to tropical moist deciduous and temperate. The biogeographic location of the Assam Hills ensures a very heavy rainfall here, and Cherrapunji, in Meghalaya boasts of the heaviest rainfall anywhere in the world (1,000 cm.). Indeed, no other jungle in the Indian subcontinent exhibits such a diversity of life, from the top of its canopy to the roots of its massive trees.

Conservation status

The northeast, inspite of having nearly 40 per cent of its land area under forest cover, has been very poorly documented and protected. The region has rarely ever been free of political problems. Refugees, insurgency, shifting cultivation and ancient methods of land tenure, have all taken a toll of forests as a result of conflicting interests. The present Bodo agitation is a case in point. Taking advantage of the differences between the authorities and the tribals, gangs of poachers have moved in and are killing wildlife almost at will in the Manas Tiger Reserve, whose forest staff have abandoned their posts after several deaths took place at the hands of well armed militants. In a recent statement, the Bodo leaders have, however, offered to protect the wildlife and forests stating that Manas is a tribal heritage and that its destruction would constitute a major tragedy for the Bodos. Hopefully, as tribal rights come to be recognized as national survival issues, the forests too might earn a reprieve from non-tribal assault.

Unfortunately, the technocrats and bureaucrats upon whom politicians depend, to ratify their grandiose plans, are only too willing to continue the plunder of the forest wealth of the northeast. In response to the flood threat, mainly caused by deforestation, for instance, plans are afoot to build mega-dams, which will drown vast forests in Arunachal Pradesh. The forests fated for such submergence will, naturally, be felled to prevent the timber from being wasted!

Barely 3,000 sq. km. or below two per cent of the area is protected, making it amongst the least protected zones of the Indian region. There are six national parks and eighteen sanctuaries in the area. But just four of these account for more than 2,000 sq. km., or over 60 per cent of the total protected area. What this means is that the bulk is too small for the long-term survival of wildlife, as also for safeguarding the botanical wealth. Also, very little is known about most of the species, their distribution and natural history.

Protected areas account for roughly 1,500 sq. km. or just over two per cent of the Brahmaputra valley sub-zone of the northeast. Most of this is concentrated in the Manas and Kaziranga National Parks, which between them are home to the largest number of protected (Schedule I) species of any protected areas in the subcontinent. However, most of these reserves are isolated with no connecting corridor between them. To remedy the situation nearly a score of protected areas have been proposed for the Brahmaputra valley, including several that will create effective corridors for wildlife. Among other benefits, this will facilitate safe dispersal of animals when the fury of the Brahmaputra is felt in the season of big flood.

The Assam Hills region has a woefully inadequate protected area network (one per cent of land area) with just over a dozen protected areas, all but three being less than 100 sq. km. in size. What is worse, many of the forest stretches of the Assam hills lack even the most basic legal protection under the Forest Act or the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. Such are the tragedies we must contend with today.