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Bamboo Diversity and Conservation in India

Scientist, Botany Division, Forest Research Institute, Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education, Dehradun, India

Bamboo is usually found in many bio climatically defined forest types. These forests can range from tropical to subalpine zones. It is quite evident that the diversity of bamboo forests’ has affected a lot because of over exploitation, shifting cultivation, gregarious flowering and extensive forest fires. The gradual as well as arbitrary elimination of forest cover has resulted in the domination vis-a-vis outgoing growth of certain species of bamboo. Such act has resulted in the curtailment of bamboo species from the areas in which they usually grow. Apart from this, a phenomenal percentage reduction in the bamboo can be easily felt especially in undisturbed key areas of conservation such as National Parks (NP) and Wildlife sanctuaries (WS).

More than 50% species of bamboo of entire Indian floristic region are belongs to rural areas of Northeastern and Eastern India; encompassing the political precincts West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura. Although, the ecophysiological conditions of Himalayan region consisting political boundaries of the States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (Himalayan part), Sikkim, North Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh are also favorable for bamboo species.

On a conservative estimate the forest area with bamboos in India is about 9.57 m ha which is nearly 12.8 % of the total forest area of 75 m ha. Bamboo areas in the States of Arunachal Pradesh have 19 790 km2, Assam 10 000 km2, Manipur 2500 km2, Tripura 750 km2 and West Bengal 164 km2 (Chakraborty 1988). In all these aforesaid regions, the crucial role played by bamboo, in rural and socioeconomic development of the indigenous communities, is indescribable. The rural inhabitants used to raise great quantities of bamboos in and around their homesteads so as to meet their day to day requirement and as a wind breaker. Bamboo has been remaining a chief source of rural employment because number of rural artisans used to bamboo to make bamboo crafts. So the possibility of just income distribution of income has been improving in the rural areas as well.

The physical geography along with precipitation, temperature and altitudinal variation play significant role towards the diversity and richness of forests of Indian Himalayan, Northeastern and Eastern part of the country's bamboo flora. Broadly and bioclimatically bamboo diversity occurs as i) Tropical ii) Temperate and iii) Alpine types.

Bamboos in Tropical Forests:

A number of bamboo species are found in moist and dry deciduous, evergreen and semi-evergreen forests and savannah type of vegetation. These species are found in both forms i.e. natural or sophisticated. The most prominent forms of bamboo comprises: -