| |
ENVIRONMENT: SAL FORESTS
Ominous Autumn
Sadly for Orissa's forests leaf-plate makers plump for
money in the economy versus ecology battle
By Ruben Banerjee
 Born
into a poor tribal family of Mayurbhanj district deep in Orissa's rural
backyard, Sambhu Deuri, 12, has had a symbiotic relationship with forests.
His father is a woodcutter while his mother forages in jungles for fruits,
roots and firewood to supplement the meagre family income. Sambhu spends
a lot of time in the forests. He plays with his friends there as he has
done since he could walk. But these days he also works for hours tearing
leaves off sal trees for his parents to stitch into plates and bowls that
will bring in a few extra rupees.
Fed by a growing worldwide demand for eco-friendly,
bio-degradable plates and bowls tribals across Orissa are descending on
the forests to collect leaves of the sal tree. The broad leaves being
pliable do not tear when being fashioned into such items. The khalis,
as the finished products are locally called, are a source of unexpected
income for tribals, most of whom own no cultivable land and have few other
means of livelihood. Though they get only Rs 5 for every bundle of 80
plates or bowls, every rupee is quite important in their impoverished
lives.
 |
 |
ON THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION: Villagers
ferry sal leaves (left)
to make plates and bowls for export |
With the sal accounting for nearly 70 per cent
of Orissa's forests, the trade in its leaves could spell an environmental
disaster. The rumblings of trucks that pull up every day in farflung villages
are ominous. Betnoti in the zero-industry district of Mayurbhanj, around
225 km from the state capital of Bhubaneswar, is a nondescript town of
a few thousand but for the rows of trucks-almost 50 a day-that stop to
pick up sal plates here. Trade is booming in places like Keonjhar, Dhenkanal,
Sambalpur, Sundergarh and Naryagarh too, but it isn't as brisk as in Betnoti.
Each truck carries around 8,000 kg of leaves. The quantum of sal leaves
going out of Betnoti alone would, therefore, be 14 lakh quintals a year.
The tribals, however, remain oblivious of the
ecological calamity they are precipitating. All they know is that the
leaves will bring in money. Near Baripada town, villagers of Burikhamari
are joined by people from distant Balasore. Together they go into the
forests pulling at leaves. In the frenzy they carelessly break off young
shoots.
Once broken, the stems do not grow. Unlike the
bank balances of the traders sitting a few kilometres away from the forests.
The bundle of 80 plates which fetches the tribals Rs 5 is worth Rs 14.50
in the wholesale markets of Cuttack. Buyers abroad pay even more: each
khali retails for around 25 cents or Rs 12. Unlike the eco-unfriendly,
bioundegradable polystyrene and plastic dishes, those made of leaves decompose
quickly. The irony is that Orissa may end up paying dearly for keeping
the world's environment cleaner.
"No forest can sustain overexploitation
of its natural resources for long," explains Ardhendu Sarangi, state
forest secretary. Given that its leaves play a crucial role in maintaining
the health of forests, states like Maharashtra have clamped a ban on the
sal's commercial exploitation. Theoretically speaking, under Orissa laws,
no more than 1.5 quintals of sal leaves can be plucked from a hectare
of degraded forests. Moreover, leaves cannot be torn from leading shoots;
this ensures regeneration of the trees. But in the general rush to earn
easy money, neither the tribals nor the traders care for laws.
"It's almost as if they want to strip the
forests bare," laments Biswajit Mohanty of the Wildlife Society of
Orissa. For instance, what Betnoti produces should have been culled from
over 7,000 sq km of degraded forest area, not from the 1,000 sq km that
lies adjacent to the town. This is true of other places too. "Obviously
the feeling is that if the leaves can be reached by hands, they can be
plucked," admits Suresh Mohanty, special forest secretary.
The consequences are already visible. In Mayurbhanj,
the forests are deceptively green; the old trees stand tall but the young
ones are stunted. At Badampur, the once-luxuriant sal trees look like
shrubs. It's quite likely that soon there will be no new trees to replace
the old ones. "We may be left only with their pictures in the future,"
says Raja Reddy, divisional forest officer, Mayurbhanj. That may be a
bit of an exaggeration but the danger is real. For not only is growth
being retarded, but the fertility of the soil is also being affected.
Decomposing sal leaves increase the humus content of soil and nurture
trees, shrubs and climbers. But with forest floors being swept clean of
sal leaves, the soil is being deprived of nutrients.
Sadly, the few hundred men trading in sal leaves seem to have great clout
in the corridors of power in Bhubaneswar. Their benefit comes before the
collective interest of the state's forests. Ever since some enterprising
traders discovered the marketability of sal dishes a decade ago, they
have been allowed a free run, with the government pretending that the
trade did not exist. It was only in October last year that the Government
finally took note of the rampant exploitation and issued a notification.
It stipulated that only the state-owned Orissa Forest Development Corporation
and the Tribal Development Corporation could trade in sal. But when a
cartel got together and pulled the right strings, the Government changed
its directive to include private traders. Even the royalty of 5 per cent
was waived when politicians, led by former chief minister J.B. Patnaik,
protested.
It has been a free for all since then, with
traders taking as much as they want. But ecologists predict the situation
cannot last forever. It's quite simple-there may not be enough leaves
in a few more years. That certainly will be widely mourned-tribals would
grieve the loss of a means of livelihood while traders would be deprived
of a goldmine. But the biggest disaster would be that by then the state
would have lost sizeable parts of its precious sal forests. And for people
like Sambhu Deuri it would mean the end of a way of life.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives