The committee has also instructed all the jhum farmers to burn their cultivation before March 15. The primitive slash and burn method of cultivation, or jhumming, in Mizoram has led to a massive destruction of forests and innumerable forest fires causing loss of human lives every year. According to figures provided by the environment forest department relating to 10 out of the 14 territorial divisions, at least 17,046.33 hectares of forest was swallowed by forest fires allegedly caused by jhumming.
Jhumming is still prevalent in Mizoram and other hilly states of the northeast as around 80 per cent of the Mizo farmers, which comprised about 30 per cent of the total 10 lakh population, depend on the practice in the absence of irrigation.
Farmers, however, say jhum burning is not the main cause of the forest fire. Rather, it is mainly the handiwork of some miscreants who torch the dry leaves for fun or some cattle grazers who wanted early growth of green grasses. Though some agriculturists think that jhumming is necessary as the ashes of burnt trees and leaves restore the soil balance, environmentalists argue that the extent of devastation it causes to the forests is not worth it.
Some agriculturists say that the soil of Mizoram, like in the other mountainous areas of the region are sour and the ashes of the burned forests helped to repair the soil imbalance to make them fertile for cultivation. ''This can, however, be substituted with slaked lime or other salty chemicals,'' agriculture experts say, adding that the sate government has to take a keen interest in order to put an end to the slash and burn system of cultivation. The Congress government has just launched an ambitious New Land Use Policy with an objective to put an end to the destructive jhumming and provide an alternative sustainable development model for the farmers.
PL Thanga, vice-chairman of NLUP apex board, said, ''The ambitious NLUP project would provide alternative sustainable land-based livelihood to the farmers, thereby keeping about 60 percent of the land under green forest cover.'' While the forest cover in Mizoram is still the highest in the country, state environment and forest department officials said the national data in regards to the state were only superficial.
According to a recent survey report by the state remote sensing application centre here, there is only 3,158.57 sq km of dense forest which is totally virgin and not yet used for cultivation in Mizoram accounting for a merely 14.98 per cent of the total geographical area of the state.
The survey report says that the state has a medium dense forest area of 2,628.08 square km which is 12.46 per cent of the total land area and 3,738.57 sq kms of less dense forest area consisting of 17.73 per cent of the state's geographical area.
Along with Mizoram, the entire north eastern region is facing wanton degradation of forests and a recent study shows that 6.3 million hectares of forests in the region was affected of which four states- Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh contributed around 72 per cent.
