Page 95 - Sonbeel Utsab 2024

spotted now. “Encroachment is taking place on the small islands in Son Beel dotted
with hijol trees (Barringtonia acutangula) that serve as habitats for migratory birds.
These trees standing in water are being felled sizably,” says Manabendra Dutta
Choudhury, a professor at the Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics,
Assam University, Silchar. “The beel largely occupied by the government and shared
by the fisherfolk, is losing swathes of wetland to buro crop cultivation. Bundhs are
created for capture fishing whenever the beel is found untouched,” he elaborates. The
increasing deforestation around the hills through which the river Singla, Son Beel's
primary inlet flows has choked the wetland with silt, leading to eutrophication;
significantly reducing the size of the wetland, adds Manabendra. As a result, the
wetland is slowly disappearing. A study from 2014 on fish diversity in the Barak
Valley, captured a Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping of the water
area. A total of 3,593.6 ha shrunk over a span of 100 years, from 1880 to 1980.
Wetlands have been known to conserve tons of carbon every year through their
stored biomass, in soil and land, apart from acting as buffers absorbing silt/nutrients
during floods. “Wiping them out, transforms them from carbon sinks to emitters of
carbon”, points out Purkayastha.

The Economic challenges in putting Son Beel on the map
There are many hurdles to conserving Son Beel as a wetland, right from
drumming up funds and political will, to changing the unsustainable fishing
methods. “Due to limited manpower resources, the concerned authorities are unable
to enforce their mandates, such as stopping illegal fishing and spreading awareness”,
says Laskar. Some experts say they believe that declaring the wetland as a Ramsar
Site of Wetlands of International Importance, is imperative for its conservation.
Researchers Moharana Choudhury of Voice of Environment, a non-profit working
on environmental protection, and Deepak Kumar of the United Nations
Development Programme, estimated the monetary value of Son Beel from a Hijol.

Conclusions
The analyses presented in the foregoing chapters make it abundantly clear that
COVID-19 will have distinct and significant impacts on the economy of the state at
three different levels viz. macro-economic level, sectoral level and cross-cutting or
overarching level. In the macro-economic front it is expected that due to the impact
of COVID-19 the growth rate will fall, unemployment and poverty will increase and
the government's revenue will decline. The main findings of the macro-economic
impact can be summarised as under:

1. The COVID-19 is expected to lower the growth rate of the state's economy by
1.3 to 5.2 percent in current fiscal 2020-21. This suggests a potential loss in the Gross
State Domestic Product (GSDP) worth of Rs 3219 to Rs 12877 crore at 2011-12
prices. The loss is equivalent to Rs. 4442 to Rs 17770 crore at the current prices.
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