INDIA: A special bamboo that flowers once every half century across northeastern India, generating a plague of rats, is threatening famine in the region.
Over the next few months state governments in the region will be finalising plans to combat the flowering of the Melocana Baccifera bamboo - known locally as "mautam" or famine - which is spread over some 18,000 sq km.
Officials said the deadly bamboo is concentrated in Mizoram state bordering Bangladesh and Burma (Myanmar) but can also be found in the neighbouring provinces of Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya and parts of Assam.
It last bloomed in 1958 in Mizoram and the consequent famine claimed nearly 15,000 lives, triggering a guerrilla war between the native Mizo people and the government for almost two decades in which the army was widely deployed, often with disastrous consequences.
The Mizo National Famine Front that emerged from the ecological disaster became the insurgent Mizo National Front that eventually signed a peace agreement with the federal authorities in the late 1980s.
According to bamboo expert Dr M P Ranjan, the flowers produce protein-rich, delicious seeds favoured by rats, causing an explosion in their population.
And after the supply of seeds is exhausted, millions of hungry rats fan out across the region, attacking scarce grain supplies wherever they can.
"The resultant famine [in 1958] was quite disastrous, and that is what is being expected this time round," Dr Ranjan warned.
The British colonial administration first noticed the phenomenon of bamboo flowering in the northeast and its devastating impact on ecology.
It recorded the first famine in 1862 and the second in 1881 in which around 15,000 Mizos died. The 1911-12 famine was also caused by this phenomenon, with similarly tragic results.
Local administrations are planning on harvesting the bamboo before it flowers and to use it locally to build houses and furniture, one of the principal exports of the poverty-ridden and under developed region.
Rat traps and poison are being provided to farmers while local radio stations are broadcasting programmes on how to deal with the imminent rodent menace.
But the Rain Forest Research Institute in Assam warned that of a total 26 million tons of bamboo growing in the region, just around 10 million tons lie in accessible areas, making the problem of dealing with the virulent strain somewhat problematic.