Regional workshop on Developing a Digital Database on Bio-Resources of North-East India
- A Report

Prof N Irabanta Singh *

An Insect captured through the Lenses of Jinendra Maibam

North-Eastern region of India covering 2,62,379 km2 land surface area constitutes one­third of the Country's total biodiversity. These regions fall into two different biogeography zones viz. Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh under Eastern Himalaya zone and Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura under North East India zone. These zones are classified based on floristic composition, naturalness of the flora and local climatic condition.

The North-Eastern regions represent three streams of species confluence i.e. Indo-Malayan, Indo-Chinese and Indian Bio-geographical realm. It is a hot-spot for biodiversity with combination of diverse habitats, biota with a high level of endemism.

And also these states are inhibited by various ethnic groups which have invaluable traditional knowledge about utilizations of plants and animals as food, medicine and other purposes. But this information is very less explored and known. There have been some efforts but those are ad-hoc, not comprehensive and not also not available to the public use and application. If there is some data available, that one is also very limited.

Thus, there is strong need for the conservation and exploration of these various bio­resources available in different North-Eastern regions of India through a systematic and comprehensive survey and collection of the traditional knowledge and information across the states.

In order to achieve this goal, a project entitled "Developing A Digital Database on bio­resources of North East India - Though a Network approach among North Eastern States" was submitted to Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, New Delhi by Prof. N. Irabanta Singh of Manipur University as Project Co-ordinator with collaboration from 9 Principal Investigators from 8 sister states of NE India i.e.
Manipur University, Canchipur;
D.M. College of Science, Manipur;
Gauhati University, Assam;
Nagaland university, Nagaland;
Mizoram university, Mizoram;
Mountain Institute of India, Sikkim;
NERIST, Arunachal Pradesh and
Tripura University, Tripura along with Prof. G.N. Ganeshaiah of University of Agricultural Sciences (VAS), Bangalore as technical collaborator.

The Project was sanctioned by DBT/GOI vide order No. BT/29/NE/2011 dated 28/11/2011 with 28 project fellows, 8 computer operators and 9 field assistants. The life of the project is for 3 (three) years.

There are two main objectives of the project. Firstly, development of digital database on bioresources of North East India using secondary sources. It is achieved by compiling the data on bio-resources from diverse sources, converting those data into IBIN format and uploading to the website and also make available in softcopy (CDs). Secondly, a systematic survey, collection and digitization of primary data on bio-resources of North Eastern India.

This involves systematic field survey, collection of bioresources data about the different species found across the eight sister states. Collected data are to be converted into structured format suitable for the database. This database will be later correlated with other present datasets available in the country including that from first one. These data will be finally uploaded to website and also made available to the public.

North East India being the repertoire of traditional knowledge about the using the different plants and animals including insects as food, medicine, etc. need to be explored and made available those invaluable information to all general public. Those already collected and exist in different forms like unpublished and unpublished thesis, reports, articles, etc. also need to be compiled and put in a proper media so that public can utilize it in a proper manner and easily.

These will be fulfill to a large extend by this database development project to through a networking teams of investigators covering the whole North Eastern region of India. The data collected from this project would also be amalgamated with already existing national database of IBIN set up by DBT/GOI which will be finally made available to the general public through the website developed by IBIN.

This project covers bio-resources on higher plants (flowering plants), lower plants (especially wild edible fungi) and animals especially insects. After identifying the various ethnic groups inhibited in particular areas of North East, information related to the bio-resources will be collected by interviewing those ethnic people in an already prepared format.

The proper format for putting into the database was prepared in collaboration with UAS, Bangalore which is supported by IBIN. The database will have information on different uses patterns, resources, mode of extractions and preparation and their respective applications of those fungi, plants or animals. Various images for these bio-resources will also be made available to the public.

In the recently held two day regional workshop related to this project (14th to 15th March, 2012) at Manipur University, 25 investigators from all the participating states attended the workshop and had been trained about the development of secondary resources and use of sample database (developed in Microsoft Access) that had been designed by Prof. K.N. Ganeshaiah and Mrs. Nandita, UAS, Bangalore.

Various problems related to the first phase of the project were being discussed. Tasks that have to be completed during the next 8 weeks have also been prepared. Finally a framework for executing the project in the database format and information sheet format had been constructed.

In the inaugural function, Prof. K.N. Ganeshaiah of UAS, GKVK, Bangalore; Prof. P.S. Yadava, Co-ordinator, CAS, Life Sciences, Manipur University; Prof. P. Nabachandra Singh, Dean, School of Humanities, Manipur University and Prof M. Shyamkesho Singh, HOD, Life Sciences, Manipur University were Chief Guest, Guest of Honours and President respectively.

The valedictory function was addressed by Prof. K.N.Ganeshaiah, Chief Guest. Prof. N. Irabanta Singh, workshop Co-ordinator and Prof. M. Shyamkesho, HOD, Life Scinces as President.