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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Sumpam Tangjang and P. K. Ramachandran Nair
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DOI:10.17265/2162-5298/2015.10.007
Understanding the attributes of traditional, location-specific land-use systems will provide insights for improvement of such systems and design of new ones for wider applicability. The integrated rice + fish system developed by the Apatani tribe of Ziro valley, Arunachal Pradesh, Northeastern India is such a unique system. Faced with shortages of their staple food items (rice and fish), these subsistence farmers developed this ingenious system—in preference to the wide-spread shifting cultivation in the region—by capitalizing on the good water supply (from rainfall supplemented by natural flow from hills surrounding the valley). Two rice crops are grown annually and fish is reared in paddy fields during the main rainy season. Crop residues and animal wastes are the sources of nutrients to crops, chemical fertilizers and insecticides are not used. Over the years, rice yield has been stable at about 3,700 kg•ha-1•year-1. Recently, UNESCO has tentatively added the valley as a “world heritage site” recognizing its “extremely high productivity” and “unique” ecological preservation. The resilience and the sustainability of the system could be attributed to efficient nutrient cycling and nutrient input through water seeping in from surrounding hills, which have not been, but deserve to be, quantified.
Apatani tribe, ecosystem conservation, sustainability