Manipur govt conducts community-led PRA exercise to rejuvenate Barak river catchment
Imphal: River basins and their catchment areas globally and in Manipur face significant environmental imbalance and threats, primarily due to anthropogenic activities and climate variability, leading to issues such as severe pollution, deforestation, altered river flow regimes, and frequent floods and droughts.
In this regard, the Manipur government on Thursday conducted a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) exercise to map the resources, land use patterns, wealth rankings, matrix ranking, timeline, and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis of Saranamai village in Senapati district under the Barak River catchment area.
The Senapati Forest Division initiated the pilot project in an effort to rejuvenate and revive degraded areas and, at the same time, improve the livelihoods of the people around the Barak watershed, an official statement said.
The baseline data would help in formulating a detailed plan of action under the new Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) scheme of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
The division plans to cover all the villages falling under the Barak watershed in the days to come.
It may be mentioned that the Barak River is of great importance due to its ecological, hydrological, environmental, religious-cultural, spiritual, and economic aspects in and around Senapati district.
The Barak River, originating in Liyai Khullen village in Senapati district, flows through Manipur before entering the plains of lower Assam and ultimately draining into the Bay of Bengal as the Meghna in Bangladesh.
The Barak basin is part of the greater Ganga-Brahmaputra river system and is the second-largest basin in Northeast India. It has several tributaries, including the Makru, Irang, and Tuivai rivers.
The Barak basin and its tributaries, along with their catchment areas, are of great significance and have enormous potential from ecological and socio-economic perspectives.
The significance, however, has been undermined of late due to various increasing threats and problems, viz., forest fires, floods, bank line erosion, deforestation, degradation, shifting cultivation, soil erosion in catchment areas, landslides, lack of awareness, etc.
To mitigate all these issues and threats, an integrated and multi-tiered approach for rejuvenating the river and its watershed through forestry intervention is required.