Kerala   

Kallar biodiversity under threat

Roy Mathew

Forest Department officials clearing undergrowth of forests

SKEWED DEVELOPMENT: A forest nursery for sourcing the seedlings at Kallar.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Forest Department is causing the destruction of one of the remaining lowland ecosystems of Kerala through its planting operations.

The department officials clear the undergrowth of valuable forests in their bid to fulfil targets under the social forestry and other afforestation programmes. What is being lost is the biodiversity of the planted areas.

In Thiruvananthapuram district, the operations are concentrated on the Kallar valley.

There, the department has identified lands of varying sizes of up to hundred hectares for planting. Leaving the trees, all the undergrowth has been cleared. In this process, many smaller plants, including medicinal and endemic herbs, have been destroyed.

While planting is yet to be done in most of the areas, some above the Kallar-Meenmutty waterfall have been planted with rattan. Rattans grow here naturally. Planting serves only to impart a monoculture character to the natural forests, if the seedlings survive. The stated objective of planting is improvement of the stock. But local people say that the objective is corruption, as the planted and naturally growing rattan will be indistinguishable after some time.

Rich reserve

Kallar valley is a rich reserve of biodiversity in the State. It lies close to the biological hotspot of Agastyakoodam biosphere and is one of the few remaining low-level forested valleys of the State. Here, vegetation occurs at an elevation of 300 metres or less from the mean sea level.

Though Kerala has more than 30 such valleys, there are only three valleys in the State with sufficient forest cover and conservation potential. The other two are at Pooyankutty, which are being affected by encroachments and bamboo collection. Many of the plants occurring in these areas will not be found in other reserve forests of Kerala, which lie at higher altitudes. This is not the first time that the department is undertaking planting operations (under the Social Forestry Project) in the forested areas of Kallar.

It had done so on hundreds of acres in Kallar and Palode ranges, after clearing the undergrowth, in 2000. Though there were recommendations against such planting, the Government had failed to take any policy decision to stop it.

The first of the recommendations had come from the Estimates Committee of the Assembly (1987-89), headed by K.V. Surendranath, which considered such planting operations an encroachment on the forests. It had recommended that social forestry be confined to non-forest areas.

Though there were proposals in the Eighties to declare about 100 sq. km of forests at Ponmudi and nearby areas with conservation potential as a sanctuary, this too was not implemented. The proposal has been revived recently as part of a comprehensive plan for a network of protected areas. However, decisions are yet to be taken.

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