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Jungle Jamboree |
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Shabitri Majhi, a 40-year-old tribal woman who lives in the Kuradipasha village in western Orissa, is facing the worst crisis of her life. Shabitri’s savior: Owner of 10 acres of agricultural land, she and her family were once considered pretty well-to-do by the neighbours. Then the rain god turned nasty. Every alternate year—during the past two decades—monsoons have failed in Kuradipasha. Today, it survives in a state of chronic drought. But Shabitri was still unfazed. Because she had the forests—in which her village nestles— to fall back on. So what if the crops failed? She could still feed her family by collecting mahua flowers and selling bagfuls in the local market. But last year, her savior let her down. Western Orissa was in the throes of a severe ‘forest drought’. Scientists are busy exploring the reason behind this relatively new phenomenon. It’s due to seasonal and annual climate changes, they say, which reduce soil moisture and disrupt the nutrient cycle in the forest’s ecosystem. So trees ‘lose their vigour’ and forest produce like mahua, tamarind, char seeds, fall sharply. But what does Shabitri care about these fancy words?
THE FRIENDLY FORESTS: They may look deep, dark, and mysterious but these woods are a part of the most productive ecosystem that this planet harbours. |
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Green lifeline “Forests are of enormous social, economic, and ecological value,” says PS Ramakrishnan, eminent ecologist and academician. That is a rather huge range of values…. isn’t it? So lets take the last one first. What is the importance of forests ecologically? Its bonding with human beings began about four billion years ago, when the first two-legged ancestors of homo sapiens (human species) settled themselves around the forests of East Africa. The wooded grasslands were their lifeline, which took care of their most fundamental needs—food and water. They fed on the animals and plants, and sourced drinking water from here. Did you know that forests act as Nature’s storeroom of water? Let’s find out more. CREATURES OF THE JUNGLE: From large mammals to creepy crawlies to microorganisms, the forests provide shelter to all. Spongy jungles It works like this: the roots of the trees hold together the soil, the leaf litter gets broken down—and then combined with minerals— take the shape and character of gigantic sponges. These sponges then slowly release water to the surrounding area. They refill aquifers, that is, the water-holding layers under the earth’s surface. Did you know that Montane "cloud" or "fog" forests are special kinds of woodlands that scrape out moisture from the clouds or fog? Forests absorb rain, and slow down floods. In fact, they play a vital role as watersheds. Confused, huh? Let me help you. A watershed is the region of land that drains into a specified body of water, such as a river, lake, sea, or ocean. The bulk of the earth's rainfall is received by mountains, thus forming the headwaters of the land's water distribution channels. There is more…forest ecosystems are usually the best cover for safeguarding water quality from sediments and chemicals. So the jungles also act as Nature’s water purifiers! No forest no water So what happens when the forests start disappearing? Lush green lands turn into barren deserts. Just consider the case of Cherrapunjee, in Meghalaya. It is one of the wettest spots in the world, with an average annual rainfall of 11,000 mm (the global average being 800 mm). It was once part of a subtropical forest. But largescale deforestation led to severe erosion, as the soil—weakened by loss of trees—gets washed away by the torrential rains. Result? Cherrapunjee is a virtual desert. Earth's lungs Besides water, what is the other natural resource that every living organism requires to live? Air, of course. Well, forests are Nature’s air purifiers as well! This is how it works: Just as our lungs absorb carbon dioxide from the blood and infuse it with oxygen, green plants absorb carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and release oxygen into the atmosphere in return. You must have all read about photosynthesis in your biology text books.
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So they form an effective sink for the carbon dioxide produced as a result of animal respiration, burning of fossil fuels, volcanoes and other natural and human-induced phenomena. And a by-product of photosynthesis is oxygen. So the forests are the Earth's air purifiers, given the large amounts of carbon dioxide they absorb from the atmosphere. Now you know why forests are also known as ‘Earth’s lungs’. BINDING FORCE: The roots help preserve soil moisture and nutrients Feeling breathless What happens when these lungs shrink in size? The problems are multiple and catastrophic. Find out what they are. Let me give you a hint. There is a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, because the disappearing carbon sinks can no longer offset the impact of fossil fuels. Do you feel breathless already? Habitat haven The oceans may have been the original home of all life on earth, but forests, too, provide shelter to a gigantic number of land-based creature. Its soil is full of microbes, insects, and fungi, which recycle organic matter. Other organisms, which do not have the same ability to create food from air and water, feed on plants. And make forests their home. Larger animals live on forest floor, and birds thrive in shrubs and canopy layers. We have, till date, been able to identify about 1.6 million species in the world (a vast number still remain undiscovered, say scientists). Many, many of these spend their lives roaming in forests—or flying through trees. Let’s take the rainforests as an example. They cover about six per cent of the earth’s surface, but they provide shelter to around 50 per cent of the plant and animal species found on this planet!
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Let me tell you a story. Some years ago the social forestry department in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra cleared several trees from a forest near Nandivse village to plant acacia trees. It did not know that this patch was a ‘sacred grove’ surrounding the temple of a powerful local deity, Kal Bhairon. The villagers, too, joined in because they were paid for the felling and planting.Within a few years the stream that flows from the grove began losing water. The villagers believed they were suffering the wrath of their deity. Sacred groves — tracts of virgin forests — are vestiges of an ancient practice in which people protected a forest to avoid the wrath of its resident god. Can you think of a more effective tool to ensure protection of species? Take the Mawsymai sacred grove near Cherrapunjee, for instance. While the rest of the region wears denuded look, the rich variety of vegetation in the grove stands out as a vivid reminder of what the region was once like. Sacred groves are found even now in many parts of India— from Meghalaya in the northeast to Rajasthan in the west and the states along the Western Ghats. They also exist in such countries as Ghana, Nigeria, Syria and Turkey. They constantly remind us that intricate government regulations are not the only instruments by which the environment can be protected…. Here rules laid down by the community are more effective than government orders... Taking stock India’s forests. The panorama ranges from evergreen tropical rain forests in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the western Ghats and the north-eastern states, to dry alpine scrub high in the Himalaya to the north. How much forest cover do we have…and who measures it? The Forest Survey of India (FSI), created in June, 1981, under the Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India, measures Indian forests. Its job is to monitor periodically (10 years cycle) the changing situation of land and forest resources in the country. Based on which the policy makers hammer out their management strategy. Several factors are taken into account while assessing forest resources. Such as:
The first report on the forest cover of the country was published in 1988. Since then, the FSI has been conducting surveys every two years. Till early 1980s, extremely time consuming conventional ground level surveys were conducted by the states to measure forests. Now with the advent of the satellite remote sensing technology, the process is much more efficient and hence accurate. How much do we have? The forest cover of the country, as per the latest assessment, is 63.73 million hectare (mha), that is, 19.39 per cent of the geographic area of the country, out of which 37.74 mha (11.4 per cent ) is dense forest, 25.50 mha (7.76 per cent) open or degraded forests and 0.49 mha (0.15 per cent) mangroves. Wait…look more closely! So then do we have plenty of forests…and really have nothing to worry about? If you take the figures given by FSI at face value, then it certainly seems so. Be`cause, as per this record, the area under forest cover has increased from 55.52 mha in 1972, and 46.35 mha recorded in 1982—to a healthy 63.73 mha now. But now let’s delve deeper. While dense forests have shrunk from 46.42 mha in 1972, to 37.4 mha now, the degraded zone has jumped from relatively controlled 8.77 mha in 1972, to a whopping 25.50 mha now! It is pretty obvious, therefore, that our forests are unhealthy… and large portions of these are growing seriously sick… |
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Losing ground So we may be getting more and more tech-savvy in measuring forests—but unfortunately, we are just not getting savvy enough to protect this precious resource. It’s not as if the government’s forest departments, the sole custodian of all forest lands across the country, oblivious to the problem. Conserving forests, has, in fact, been India’s key priority for some time now. Till the 1970s forests were stripped mercilessly. While the British government took forests away from the local communities, to cut trees to make ships and railway lines, the desi rulers sold them to the paper and pulp industry— to be used as its source of raw materials. By then alarm signals were ringing furiously. Satellite data—put together by foreign research agencies—revealed that India was losing 1.3 mha of forests per year!! Clearly, the government was in trouble. Then came the National Forest Policy, 1988. As a significant follow up to this policy, the mechanism of Joint Forest Management (JFM) was legalised in 1990.
For forests to be protected and conserved, they need to be seen as being more valuable than the standard utilities they provide— like wood for instance. The good news is that it is now possible to put a tangible, economic value on the many, intangible benefits a forest provides. And this practice of ‘proper’ evaluation is slowly gaining ground in India. It has already been done in Himachal Pradesh, the picturesque forest covered state that attracts thousands of tourists every year. According to Madhu Verma, economist with the Indian Institute of Forest Management, HP forests are worth over Rs 100,000 crore. Verma has included money from timber, fodder, other minor forest produce, as well as from a host of other kinds of benefits. Local, such as watershed functions; national, such as ecotourism or biodiversity; and global benefits that the HP forests provide by acting as carbon sinks! Just think about it. If the forests of Himachal Pradesh alone are worth a gigantic fortune…what would be the true value of all the lands that are under forest cover in India. Can we really afford to fritter away this immense wealth that Nature has gifted us? |
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Sacred groves: treasure troves 