Swadeshi vs Videshi debate- Why is so loud only in forestry?

One world when it comes to food

Why only the trees introduced into India from foreign lands such as the Eucalypts, Acacias earn the wrath of all, while many of the staples in the country that travelled from abroad had come to stay on and flourish happily. For instance, from atta (wheat) and aloo (potato) to apples, many of our primary diet components originated from other continents. From a study on the interdependence of the world’s countries on each others’ foods conducted by a team of scientists of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (ICAT), covering 177 countries and 132 types of fruits and vegetables, they concluded that of all the food grains, vegetables and fruits grown and eaten in India, about a third originally came from some other part of the world. Such food items of videshi origin contribute to 45 per cent of all calories consumed in the country.

The following statement illustrates as to how much we owe to the various sub-continents for the huge chunk of food crops we inherited from them.

Continent	Sub continent	Crops introduced into India
Asia	Central Asia	Garlic, Apple
	East Asia	Cabbage, Orange, Soybean
	West Asia	Wheat, Onion, Peas, Carrots, Spinach, Grape
Americas	Central America	Chilly, Maize, Beans, Papaya, Palm oil
	South America	Potato, Tomato, Pumpkin
	Africa	Sorghum, Coffee, Cowpeas
	Mediterranean	Rapeseed, Mustard

That such introduced crops have come to occupy huge areas under cultivation in the country is clear from the fact that two horticultural crops viz., potato (2.05 million ha-MH) and apples (0.313 MH) together alone account for 10 per cent of the total area of 24 MH under horticulture. Area under wheat is 29.8 MH out of total area under agriculture 129 MH (2017) accounting for one fourth of the total area under cultivation. Such is the influence of exotic plant origin in the country’s agricultural scenario. 

Same is true of exotic fishes in the country, as it was found that the introduction of the foreign breeds of fishes to Indian fresh water ponds and reservoirs and their culture in isolated condition or in suitable combination with the Indian counter-parts yields a higher production. A number of fish species have been imported from foreign countries and introduced into Indian fresh water. Though brought for different purposes, their utility, the exotic fishes have been classified into three different categories, namely food fishes, game or sports fishes and larvicidal fishes on the basis of their utility. 

But we don’t hear much of a hue and cry about all these extensively cultured exotic plant or animal species in their introduced environment.

Why single out forestry tree species?

A comparison will reveal the reason behind the systematic counter-campaign against the introduced tree species in India. The cultivated agri-horticultural crops occupy vast extent of intensively managed farm lands though such areas were developed into agricultural fields from the original land mass supporting natural vegetation several millennia and centuries back. Furthermore, agricultural scientists went into developing hybrids of such imported plant species that suit to Indian conditions. Unlike the above situation, forestry trees brought from foreign lands were introduced into natural ecosystems by replacing the existing growth of indigenous trees and other plants only in the recent past by our colonial rulers- around 150 years back. 

As for the southern India, the much maligned species include the Blue gum (Eucalytus globulus), Red gum (Eucalyptus grandis), tropical pine (Pinus patula) and Black wattle (Acacia mearnsii) in the hills. Introduction of all the exotic trees in the hills corresponded to 1850s, magnitude of which escalated in the immediate post-independence decades for obvious commercial reasons such as raw material supply to wood based industries and societal purpose of making available fuel wood to the people. These species were planted on forest lands after clear felling the natural vegetation in the degraded forests including sholas and grass lands in the hills. Extensive extent of deciduous, thorn and scrub forests and dry lands were committed to the hybrid Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus teriticornis) in the plains after removing the native vegetation. The other species that is painted as a villain of farmers in large part of Tamil Nadu is the seemai karuvel (Prosopis juliflora). Prosopis was introduced by aerial sowing of seeds in the vacant and open, drought-prone, dry tracts of erstwhile Ramanathapuram and Tirunelvel districts in the first decade of independence, mainly to meet the fuel demand of people. 

Some of these species, particularly the wattle in the hills and Prosopis in the plains earned the disrepute as alien invasive, in view of their propensity to establish and spread out into the areas outside their introduced sites. Such species are shown in bad light on the grounds of altering the ecological makeup of the forests and hills, producing an altogether alien landscape scene, smothering the recruits of indigenous ground flora and serving as a fire hazard.

Public Interest in eradication of exotics and invasive from forests

From time to time, public spirited individuals and conservation minded Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) approach the higher judiciary praying for directions to the concerned government organizations to eradicate the exotic trees and invasive plants from the forests both in the hills and the plains. The litigants fault the exotics on one or more of the following environmental concerns: They deplete groundwater by sucking huge amount of the same (Eucalyptus), they don’t allow any ground vegetation underneath by producing allelopathic effect on soil, they affect the local plant biodiversity and the associated fauna, they invade into water bodies and dry lands of farmers (Prosopis), adjacent forests and grasslands (Wattle), they deteriorate soil quality and fertility, they adversely alter the landscape scene and so on. In this blog post, I am confining the discussion to the issues pertaining to the Eucalyptus and wattle in the hills and the hybrid Eucalyptus and Prosopis in the plains of Tamil Nadu in view of their sizeable spread. 

High Court appointed Committee on Alien Invasive Plants estimated the spread of chief plant invasive in the State. As per their approximation, wattle occupied 22,400 ha and Prosopis 56,000 ha of lands. As per the records of Tamil Nadu Forest Plantation Corporation (TAFCORN), the Corporation has an extent of 52,300 ha under Eucalyptus plantations, mostly of clonal origin.  

A series of interim orders have been passed by the Honb’le High Court of Madras on the PILs relating to the removal of exotics from the Kodai and Nilgiris hills, removal of hybrid Eucalyptus from the TAFCORN and stoppage of further planting of Eucalyptus by TAFCORN on forest lands and removal of Prosopis from the water bodies and forests across the state. 

On the removal of wattle and Eucalyptus in the Kodai hills The Court in their order dated 27.02.2014 directed the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Government of Tamil Nadu, Chennai, to formulate a comprehensive scheme for restoration of shola forest, on a systematic removal of wattle and eucalyptus trees. This was followed with other interim orders on 10.08.2015, 12.10.2015 directing the State to give a status report on the suggestions that the Government is coming up with the Management Plan for the Sanctuaries and Working Plan for the Reserved Forests. 

On planting of Eucalyptus by the Tamil Nadu Forest Plantation Corporation (TAFCORN) The Tamil Nadu government has been told by the Madras High Court not to plant any more eucalyptus trees in the state vide its order dated 25 July 2022.

On removal of Prosopis from the water bodies and forests across the state The court directed in its order to remove and eradicate the Prosopis juliflora across the state in its interim order on 10th February 2017. Noting that there is no progress in the matter though 4.5 years has passed since its order, the Madras High Court on 2nd February, 2022 instructed that the State government should come up with a policy or a scheme to devise the mechanism to remove the Prosopis juliflora across the state and suggested to make use of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) or other sources of funds to eradicate the Prosopis trees. 

In response to the various Writs before the Madras High Court, the Tamil Nadu Government filed an affidavit committing to eradicate all invasive trees from Tamil Nadu’s forest areas within the next 10 years. Noting that they could not wait for 10 years, the High Court has been emphatic to complete this task of removal of invasive trees even more quickly by giving it to private sector.

Present status of compliance 

Tamil Nadu Forest department in their wisdom and in tune with prevailing forest policy mandate initiated various management measures to contain the spread of the above exotic species on forest lands, which I enumerate as under. 

When the controversy over Eucalyptus raged the country, the State government ordered for the stoppage of further expansion of areas under blue gum or wattle in the hills in 1989. Restocking of old Eucalyptus or wattle areas with the same species abated by 1995. By mid 1990s, fresh planting of hybrid Eucalyptus in the plain forests under the department control too ceased. Replanting of hybrid however continued in forest areas leased to TAFCORN that had completed the rotational harvest periods, as these lands were exclusively committed to the species on commercial lines. 

The State forest department had been taking up systematic removal of Eucalyptus and wattle by allotting the plantations to wood based industries. In the opened up areas after felling, plantations of shola shrubs and trees are taken up to restore the areas to their original vegetation. The results are uneven with some old blue gum areas supporting profuse regeneration of native shola species. With wattle areas, goal of restoration seemed to be a tougher prospect in view of the prolific recruitment of new wattle seedlings from the abundant seed source available on ground. Such areas required intensive hand-picking and removal of wattle recruits at least for 3-4 years or till the time seed supply is exhausted. For detailed analysis, refer my paper in Times of India dated 18.08.2022.

In view of escalating human- wild animal conflict situation and with the object of conserving the existing biodiversity, the Forest department has stopped removal of hybrid Eucalyptus from the plain forest lands in their forest divisions. Openings and gaps in all these old plantation areas have begun to bear natural regeneration of the indigenous vegetation of the relevant forest type.

In case of Prosopis, the invasive has established over large chunk of open and vacant land parcels adjoining cultivated areas and in the shallow parts of irrigation tanks. Its occurrence in the vacant lands is either due to the reason of keeping the same as fallow for long or where the site conditions are too bad for any agricultural enterprise. Such of those lands came to be invaded by the species through seed dispersal agents such as water, cattle and goat or through root suckers. Its spread on the tanks beds is largely due to lack of prudent management of our rural water bodies. Tamil Nadu boasts of a system of man-made irrigation tanks numbering around 39000- large to medium to small – that are fed by from an upstream structure to downstream as the tank surpluses. They are under the ownership of either the Public Works Department or the rural local bodies. Being life line of irrigated agriculture, the tanks need to undergo periodical maintenance such as desilting of the deeper portions, strengthening bunds, repair of surplus weirs and maintenance of supply channels etc so as to keep the tanks in good order. However, most of these tanks haven’t enjoyed the advantage of rigorous maintenance regime due to want of funds. 

Forest department had since 1960 raised successful plantations of Babul (Acacia nilotica), a versatile tree that can withstand long periods of inundation under social forestry programme in the water spread area of the tanks. Worked under a rotation system of 10 years, felling of these plantations gave revenue to the Government, a part of which was shared with the concerned panchayat. Besides the cut ends of the trees provided fuel to villagers and the tank beds with Acacia pods and plentiful grass offered scope for grazing of village cattle. Apprehension by the panchayats and PWD that these plantations impeded the desilting of tanks and weakened the bunds resulted in the withdrawal of the programme since 1990s. Parting away of babul from the tank turned out to be an open invitation to the intrusion of Prosopis. Today, major extent of Prosopis in the State is found in its village irrigation tanks.

At pilot level, removal of wattle from the ghat forests and Prosopis from plain forests is continued under various ongoing schemes of the state or Government of India with mixed results. Some are encouraging, while at many sites, unanticipated outcomes emerge. In a pilot project that involved the removal of wattle in Madikettan solai in Kodaikanal over 100 ha area in 2014, followed with successive years of wattle seedling removal led to the resurrection of a good stand of shola trees Here no artificial regeneration of shola or grass was undertaken. While pink mark shows the Mathikettan Shola in Kodaikanal, blue mark the wattle invaded area upto shola pocket, the yellow one indicates the May 2022 image of the naturally restored area (Photo courtesy: D.Venkatesh)

In a sparse wattle area near Berijam lake in the same Kodai hills, profuse resurgence of Daphniphyllum neilgherrense, a pioneer shola shrub under wattle canopy was found occurring. An area of 10 ha of this wattle was clearfelled, abruptly opening up the canopy, which was very soon overrun by the Braken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) smothering the shola seedlings (Image courtesy: A.Jain Alaudeen) 

Likewise, clearing of a Lantana camara from an area in Meghamalai sanctuary ended in damp squib. The opened up area soon was invaded very heavily by Eupatorium and Abutilon indicum, which by themselves are unwanted guests at that site (Image before and after removal of Lanatana; Images courtesy: A.Jain Alaudeen)

Way ahead

The state government has notified a policy to remove the invasive species namely “Ecological restoration of forest areas infested with invasive plant species in Tamil Nadu’ on the 13th July 2022 in response to the direction of the Madras High Court. The Policy highlights that the current assessment of forest areas occupied by various invasive is at best a broad approximation and to estimate and monitor the alien invasive species (AIS) , remote sensing based estimation, coupled with citizen science, research and field research and monitoring and biennial survey of AIS can only give accurate estimates of the same. It is noted in the policy that the document is conceived to serve as a guiding manual and provide direction for identifying and applying appropriate management interventions for invasive species management including prevention, eradication, control, containment and restoration. The Policy emphasizes that accomplishing the policy objectives depends critically on the financial mandate and support for the required tasks and activities and institutional and infrastructural arrangements. The funds created through the financial mandate and made available to the stakeholders will enable the institutional arrangements and mechanisms to become operative. Recognizing probably the need for a guarded and cautious approach in the removal of invasive aliens from the forests and restoration of such areas to their original status, the policy has not laid any road map or time frame for the completion of this herculean task.