How does Jhum cultivation promote desertification? [AI 2011C]
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Answer:
i don't know so sorry plz
Answer:Deforestation and growing population are resulting in land degradation even in Nagaland, which is known for good monsoons. It is one of the five states where land is degrading at an alarming rate, according to the Indian Space Research Organization's Space Applications Centre (SAC) atlas.
In Kohima, the hilly state’s capital city, 62.43 per cent of the area is under degradation. Officials blame this on jhum cultivation where people slash trees and burn them to prepare the land for farming.
The satellite picture shows that eastern Kohima has lost a massive chunk of forest in just 10 years because of jhum cultivation, said Merenwapang, deputy project director, Nagaland GIS and Remote Sensing Centre that conducted ground-level studies on behalf of SAC for the atlas.
About 20,000 hectares of forest is felled every year in the state for jhum cultivation, said T Renben Lotha, additional director, department of land resources. The extensive practice of jhum results in an average loss of 30.62 tonnes of soil area per hectare annually, read Nagaland’s soil and water conservation department’s annual report for 2017-18.
The report highlighted that the practice also destructs prime agricultural and forest lands through erosion. The practice of shifting cultivation involved 61 per cent households, covering about 1 million ha in the entire state, according to the report. It exposes about 5.65 per cent of the total geographical area of the state (16,579 square kilometres) to soil erosion hazards.
“I don’t know any other way of farming or earning livelihood except for shifting cultivation,” said Vimecho Mekro, a 36-year-old farmer of Kezocha village in Kohima.