Distribution and Growing Stock of Bamboos in India

The total forest area of the country is 76.52 million ha. The actual forest cover is 63.96 million ha. The forest area containing Bamboo is 8.96 million ha which constitutes 11.71% of the recorded forest area and 14.01% of the forest cover of the country. The earlier estimate which gave a figure of 9.57 million ha of Bamboo area had considered the recorded forest area of 74.96 million ha (this was the FSI estimate of 1982 which has been widely quoted). From the inventory reports of the FSI carried out from 1965 till now the total growing stock of the country is around 80.428 million tonnes for 8,385 million ha (it is difficult to have precise estimate). This estimate also does not include Bamboos growing on farm lands. the StateslUTs which constitute a large proportion of the growing stock are Assam (16%), Manipur 14%), Mizoram (14%), Arunachal Pradesh (12%) Madhya Pradesh (12%), Orissa (7%), Meghalaya (6%), Nagaland (5%) and Maharashtra (5%). Our analysis shows that 66% of the Bamboo growing stock is in the North-Eastern States and the remaining 34% is in rest of the country. The contribution of the clump forming Bamboos to the growing stock is 67.3% while the non-clump forming Bamboos contribute 32. 7% to the total. Considering the number of total culms, the contribution of some main species is: Dendrocalamus strictus (45%), Melocanna bambusoides (20%), Bambusa arundinacea (13%), D. hamiltonii (7%), B. tulda (5%), B. pallida (4%) and the remaining 6% is contributed by other species.