64pc of Mizoram bamboo has flowered: Report 

Aizawl, Sep 10 : The catastrophic bamboo flowering, which occurs every 48 years, has swallowed 64 per cent of the state’s total resources of the plant during the last three years. 

According to a report prepared by the Mizoram Remote Sensing Application Centre (MIRSAC), Science & Technology, the last bamboo flowering or Mautam in local parlance started from 2005 and reached its climax in 2008. 

From January 2005 to April 2008, bamboo flowering covered an area of 3675.2 sq km, which was 64.5 per cent of the state’s bamboo forest. As the bamboo still flowers in some parts of the state, the percentage could be 80 per cent of our bamboo forest, said the report, which was released here today by Lalsawta, planning department’s principal secretary & MIRSAC chairman. 

Dr Robert L Sailo, scientist at the MIRSAC, said the report had been prepared with the help of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) and had been funded by NE-SAC. 

The report also stated that in 2005, the bamboo forest covered 5697.29 sq km of the state total area of 21,087 sq km. In that year alone 362.59 sq km of the bamboo forest (6.05%) was destroyed by the cyclic phenomenon. 

In Mizoram, the flowering of bamboo plants is significant as it influences a rodent outbreak, which in turn leads to famine. 

Bamboo flowering gives a boost to the rat population. After eating the forest feeds, the rodents turn their attention to paddy fields in the Jhum (shifting cultivation method being practiced by the tribal farmers in the Northeast). 

The rats not only devour paddy; they also take chilli, betel nut, cotton, chestnut fruit, millet, bamboo shoots, tobacco stem and certain grasses too. 

Mizoram had witnessed the catastrophe in 1911 and then in 1958-59, each resulting in severe famine. 

Such rodent outbreaks at a periodic interval have also been reported from neighbouring states of Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. 

Though the last bamboo flowering had caused acute rice shortage in the rural areas, there were no reports of starvation death.