Shirui Lily: A Natural Beauty Under Manmade Threat

 

Shirui Lily: A Natural Beauty Under Manmade Threat

                                               Photo: Nick Wungsek

By R Lester Makang

The rarity and uniqueness of the world famed Shirui Lily or Kashongwon (in Tangkhul dialect) can be traced to the very fact that nowhere else does the majestic flower grow beyond the thick forest peak known in local parlance as Shirui Kashong located at Shirui village in Ukhrul district of Manipur.

This shows that Shirui Lily the State Flower of Manipur- is inextricably linked with its natural habitat in terms of its climatic conditions and biodiversity.

Significantly, the state government of Manipur has accorded a state-level status to the irstwhile district level festival which is celebrated annually in the district in honour of Shirui Lily. Subsequent to the announcement by chief minister N Biren Singh during his maiden visit to the district on April 11, 2017, the inaugural edition of the five-day long festive extravaganza at the state level was held in the month of May in the same year.

For years, Kashong forests had been home to various flora and fauna like the Summer Lilies and other species of birds and animals peculiar to Shirui wilderness, apart from Kashongwon.

In recent years, however, it has been witnessed that Shirui Kashong, the wildlife habitat, is under severe threats from manmade degradation of its previously rich biodiversity. Amongst them are the recent massive forest fires broke out on 25 March last and devastated about 122 hectares of the natural habitat of the endangered lily.

This scenario gives rise to growing apprehension with many predicting that the said lily might face extinction in the foreseeable future unless concerted efforts are made to preserve it.

Apart from a decline in its number, the average size of the lily's plants in blossom has also gone down to 2/3 feet during the peak bloom season which is from second week of May to first week of June. Little wonder then, Shirui Lily has come to be heavily tagged as an endangered species.

With the flower fed by pre-monsoon rainfalls beginning to bloom at its best currently, there has emerged again another concern over its safety from being trampled by visitors since the heritage does not have any fences or similar structures to keep out visitors from where the plants grow on the sprawling Kashong peak.

Much has been already said and written about the subject many times over and while this short write up does not attempt to present any experts' point of views on the subject, it rather assumes the form of general perspectives on how the grim scenario could be mitigated locally in the face of unchecked human activities severely threatening the rare lily and its natural habitat, on top of adverse effects of unstoppable global warming phenomenon.

This immediately brings us to a deliberation on how the impact of two-pronged threat due to so-called developmental activities and subsistence-related activities around which the issue of exploitation and subsequent degradation of Shirui wilderness invariably centres, could be neutralized. It does not mean to disparage developmental works but the construction of Shirui-Mapum IVR road under PMGSY in 2007-8 has caused an irreparable damage to the natural habitat of the rich Shirui biodiversity. 

The road cuts through the heart of the thick forest. Many full grown wild trees and plants were uprooted leaving the forest open and dry, resulting in fleeing of many birds and animals from the forest.

On the other hand, rampant deforestation of Shirui wilderness continues unabated. Mindless human activities like widespread burning of mountain sides for slash and burn cultivation, unmindful logging for both domestic and commercial purposes inter alia year after year have today caused a huge portion of the rich heritage to lose its natural green vegetation over the years.

A number of discussion in the form of seminars and awareness campaigns have been held many times to check such avoidable impacts due to manmade destruction of the forest. 

The debate has all boiled down to the simple fact that almost 90 percent of the vast forest covers of Shirui mountains are private lands and are owned by individual villagers and that the Shirui Village Authority has no control whatsoever over the use of the forest resources by the private land owners.

The contention of the private land owners of the village has been one of lack of any clearcut government initiative to provide alternative means of livelihoods for them since all the human activities responsible for degrading the heritage pertain to the villagers' livelihood.

It is definitely easier said than done when it comes to preservation of the Shirui Lily because it would entail the whole gamut of unspecified preconditions. Some prerequisite groundwork could be to adopt a resolution binding upon any individuals/agencies against any form of nature exploitation within the heritage in the name of development, to take into account the socioeconomic conditions of all the private land owners for proper assessment and relocation by way of providing them an alternative means of economy and to so device a local mechanism that the village authority of Shirui village is empowered to assume the overall responsibility for ensuring that Shirui Lily as well as the biodiversity of Kashong forests are preserved.

We know that the threat of extinction posed to Shirui lily, making it decline both in number and size in recent years, is largely artificial and is caused by unbridled activities of mankind. This is best proven by the fact that the Lily's plants continue to grow upto 5/6 feet reaching the height of humans in dense areas on northeastern sides of Kashong peak which have remained relatively untouched by destructive activities of human beings.

Once the human interference in nature's way is checked, the lush green vegetation of the Kashong forests - the safe abode of Shirui lily -would restore to its previous glory automatically. In that event, the prevailing threat of extinction posed to Kashongwon would gradually become history. The bottom line is "Keep Shirui Lily safe with Mother nature, not with mankind."

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