The Shifting Cultivation and Its Impact on Anthropogenic Environment in Manipur

The increase in population, particularly in the developing countries, has put tremendous pressures on land. Shifting cultivation is an age-old practice and commonly prevailed in the hill districts of Manipur where jhumians expenses high and unscientific form of land uses. The cycle of shifting in the early days of 20–30 years on a particular area has reduced to 2–5 years because of raising population; resulted degrading problems of environment and anthropogenic as well as geomorphologic of the region. The paper presents the causes and consequences of shifting cultivation and its direct and indirect impacts on the ecology. The present paper is base on secondary data that collected from various census publications of Directorate of Census Operation, Government of Manipur and primary sources of data collected from survey of four sampled villages from Ukhrul, Chandel, Tamenglong and Churachandpur districts of Manipur. The total population of the state is 28.56 lakhs and out of this, 40.88% are of Scheduled Tribes settles in the districts. Permanent cultivation is generally practise in the valley districts while jhum/shifting cultivation is widely adopted in most of the hills (40.18%). The findings from the study show that traditional slash and burn method of cultivation becomes land degradation and environmental disturbances. Shifting cultivation occupies a vital place in the tribal economy and constitutes a distinct part on the socio-economic set up and the life style of the hill tribes of Manipur. However, it is the most primitive and popular type of cultivation practised by the hill tribes, in fact, intense labour, degraded top soil due to deforestation and it seriously affect the ecology. It has reported that, during 2012–13, the total percentage distribution of reserved forests, protected forests and un-classed forests are 8.42, 23.95 and 67.63 respectively.