POPULATION PRESSURE AND ITS IMPACT ON FOREST RESOURCES IN NORTH EAST INDIA

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Dr Bhanu Hazarika, Dr. Niranjan Bhattacharjee

Abstract

Population growth, combined with other direct factors such as poverty, corruption, and weak property rights, contributes to forest loss and severe environmental degradation. In recent years, integrated management of population pressure and natural resources are widely implemented by researchers. Intense population pressure on the environmental resources is the leading factor in modifying the land use pattern of an area. Forest resource is a vital element that supports life on the surface of the earth, but human pressure on land has raised several environmental problems and created a huge impact on forests. In the case of India, it is found that continued population growth creates tremendous pressure on environmental components mainly on forests. North East India is small but a significant part of the country covering an area of 255, 511 km2 i.e 7.77% of India’s total area. As of 2011, the region had a population of 45.53 million, about 3.07% of India’s total population, and the density of population in this region is 174 persons per km2of the 7.97% of all India (Bhattacharjee and Sarmah, 2018). There is a strong link between demographic and socio-economic trends on one hand, and the depletion of resources and environmental degradation, on the other (Sinha, B.K and Choudhary, S,2008). Growing demand for forest and agricultural products to feed increasing rural and urban populations will continue to put pressure on forests. In this paper, an attempt has been made to focus on the major factors of population pressure in the region and how its impact on forests by using various methods as per need.

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