Editor,
The cycle of dry and windy season has arrived and is impacting our region which is predominated by forest and vegetation of deciduous types adapted to cyclical dry and wet climatic condition. The forest floor during this period is littered with a blanket of dried biomass of leaves, branches and twigs easily inflammable even by tinder of spark and can lead to a wide scale chain reaction disaster. What can be observed in this season are the rampant, unrestricted hectares of illegal, unscientific and destructive burning of hill slopes by people particularly in the rural areas. Such large scale destruction of forests leads to loss of wild habitats and stresses the wildlife population, pushing them to their extremity of endangerment and extinction. Most wildlife species are pushed out by wildfire from their safe habitat to vulnerable environments where they are easily exposed to new predators and to illegal poachers. Reptiles, species of bird and insects are displaced and destroyed by such smoke and heat and contributes to their declining to an unsustainable population. Important endemic medicinal plants and ornamental species are lost by such senseless burning. One can see that such continual burning of large kilometres of forest area from the past years have completely replaced our endemic luxuriant more ecological productive carbon sink and more water retaining tropical mixed dense forest types or ‘law diengmet’ by the dry acidic and less species diverse pine forest and bamboo vegetation more prone to forest fire during dry season and home to only a few variant of dry grasses that grow within the forest floor.
Burning of such large areas of forests directly contributes to soil degradation as the sloping land is left without any protective cover during the rainy season. The thin layer top soil along with burned black ashes is easily washed off by strong run-off currents. Such repeated onslaughts expose the land and sloping areas to become barren rocky landscapes. The process also decreases the flow of organic fertility from the hill slopes to the flat lands in the foothills thereby adding to the decline of agricultural productivity in the whole region. Our loss of such precious resources every rainy season from the hilly tracts intensifies in magnitude due to our recklessness and unsustainable practices and indirectly contributes to floods and deposition and enrichment of silt and minerals in the flood plains on both sides of the river valley systems located to the north and south of the plateau region. This helps sustain high density inhabitants in those areas due to availability of fertile tracts for agricultural activities. Based on the above factors can we introspect as to what benefits we derive by large scale burning of forests? Does it help in our sustainability and livelihood? What are the positive long term implications of such practices? It’s time we realized the magnanimity of the situation and the long term irreversible impact and ecological loss to our environment and biodiversity resources. We should resolve to create awareness to stop such environment unfriendly and disastrous practices and there should be strict enforcement of law to stop such destructive practices in future.
Yours etc.,
W Syiemlieh
Via email
Burden of population
Editor,
Apropos the letter “Caste discrimination” (ST, March 23, 2018) by Sujit De, it is true that in India we still have a long way to go as far eradication of caste discrimination is concerned. The benefits of present reservation system are not reaching the absolutely needy; rather it is oiling the already oiled machine only. So the Government must do something concrete so that the benefits of present reservation system reach the economically backward people only, irrespective of caste or creed. Also, it is not fair to conclude that the private sector in India recruits individuals belonging to upper castes only. This is an extremely biased opinion. There is no denying the fact that the private sector prefers people with knowledge of English language and I think, justifiably so. It prefers English fluency not because of it’s alleged attempt to pamper any particular category but mainly because English is an International language. The writer of this letter personally feels that the private sector should not be forced to abandon it’s policy of preference for English or any other rich foreign language as it would destabilize the whole set up. If India wants to become a global economic superpower then we really need to shrug off our narrow outlooks in any form. Hindi is our national language, true, but one who knows the language well is sometimes constrained to feel that it still has the scope for more research. Also, we must not forget that India is reeling under the menace of over-population, which going to overtake even China in the next few years. We must not compare India with other developed countries as far as socio-economic situation is concerned because whatever good social measures the Government/the NGOs implement, is almost impossible to reach our mammoth population. The Government of India and the opposition must work together to devise strategies to contain the threats being posed by the unprecedented growth of population. Otherwise, only talking of more and more reservations in the present situation would be illogical and futile.
Yours etc.,
Partha Sarathi Gupta,
Via email
Need for sanity!
Editor,
The recent procession to commemorate forty years of the foundation the Khasi Students Union resulted in some violence. The KSU has gradually evolved as an organisation that is still seen to be fighting for the rights and issues plaguing the society and community. However, the Organisation needs to bring some sense of sanity and discipline amongst its members because sometimes in the heat of the moment emotions run high and this leads to law and order issues. As an Organisation that seeks the support of the masses it needs to take up issues of concern more directly and prioritise them. The issues affecting the education sector and the need to enhance and have more skilled students in various work areas should be the agenda of the KSU if it is concerned with the student community and the future of the state. We hope that the KSU leadership will introspect and chart out its vision.
Yours etc…
Dominic S.Wankhar
Shillong-3