Living Root Bridges of Meghalaya: Living Root Bridge also called the Jingkieng Jri has been included in the tentative list of World Heritage Sites of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Key Points:

• The Jingkieng Jri is found in over 70 villages in Meghalaya highlighting the socio-cultural, social and botanical links between people and nature.
• The living root bridges are grown by the villagers by training the ‘ficus elastica’ tree on both sides of water bodies over a period of about 10 to 15 years where the roots form the bridge.
• Often used as a path across a stream or a river, currently, there are about 100 known living root bridges spread across 72 villages in the state.

Note: One of the most famous living root bridge is in Nongriat, which is a double decker living root bridge and is spread across two levels.

• Villagers (particularly the Khasi and Jaintia tribal clans) have been building and maintaining these bridges for over 600 years.

Additional Info:

Other sites included in the list in 2022:

• Sri Veerabhadra Temple and Monolithic Bull (Nandi) at Lepakshi of Andhra Pradesh, The Geoglyphs of the Konkan region of Maharashtra have made it to the tentative list of UNESCO world heritage sites in 2022.

About UNESCO:

• The full form of UNESCO is United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
• UNESCO was founded on 6 November 1945.
• It is a specialized agency of the United Nations aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, the sciences, and culture.
• It is headquartered in Paris, France.
• The current head of UNESCO is Audrey Azoulay.