NTFP.org

[Shovan Dattagupta]

The Inner Line Reserve Forest of Cachar, Assam, India, is the largest reserve forest in the southern part of Assam covering an area of 44266.00 ha, and is bounded by the State of Mizoram in the east and south and Hailakandi District of Assam in the west. This reserve forest is a part of the Indo-Myanmar biodiversity hotspot with a vegetation type of tropical semi evergreen and ever green forest. The forest also has 22 forest villages with diverse demographical structure The inhabitants of these villages depend on the forest products in a number of ways. The livelihood of forest dwellers largely depends upon the extraction of Non Timber forest product. Mesua ferrea (Iron wood Tree), locally called Nageswer, is an important tree species in the Sub-tropical forests and was once abundant in the Inner Line reserve Forest. This important tree harbours a large number of orchid species and serves as the roosting site of hoolok gibbon (Hylobates hoolock), the only Indian ape. The flower of the plant is widely used as a Non Timber Forest Product. Over extraction of the flower has led to severe decimation of the tree population. It is urgently required to study the ecology of the tree and take steps for in situ as well as ex situ conservation of this important tree component of sub tropical forest