The Voice for Wildlife Trust, Mysuru has come up with a proposal to eradicate lantana in forests as the invasive weed is believed to be a major cause for spread of wildfire.
Managing trustee and advocate K S Sudheer has proposed the concept of ‘Wildlife Habitat Improvement Tribal Empowerment through Lantana Eradication’.
He has suggested that lantana can be introduced as a source of biomass to the briquette industry which would create employment opportunities for the tribal community and also economically enable largescale lantana removal. A briquette is a compressed block of coal dust or other combustible biomass material such as charcoal, sawdust used for fuel. The industry requires different sets and levels of skills and can provide jobs for tribals.
Lantana leaves and flowers contain toxins and thus herbivores do not consume them. It has now turned out to be one of the worst weeds and is a huge threat to native plants and animals. Each plant can produce up to 12,000 seeds and each seed can remain dormant up to 11 years and germinate faster if exposed to smoke (possibly from forest fires). They also germinate better if passed through the digestive tract of birds. If lantana is cut down it puts out new shoots which grows much faster than the mother plant and if the roots are dug up, many dormant seeds are disturbed in the soil. So, all seeds germinate increasing the density of lantana in the area.
According to Sudheer, lantana is also an opportunity. “It could be an alternative biomass source, a viable employment generator and it can reduce the stress on the natural forest.
The use of lantana as a source of biomass has many benefits, including a largescale and regular habitat that will be improved, regular and continued employment ensured to tribal communities, effecting a reduction in human-animal conflict, especially elephants, a reduction in forest fire, reduction of Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFP) dependence by tribal communities and lantana eradication without any spending by the Forest department,” Sudheer said.
The initiative should be a low-key affair like NTPF collection and should not become a largescale industry. He said the area outline for extraction of lantana should be done by the Forest Department on a regular basis in line with the park management plan. It is also suggested to allow benefits to only tribals and tribal societies and the department should support and follow-up the same with seed dispersal and other habitat improvement methods in the cleared area.
Forest department authorities however, feel that the idea is good and the eradication of lantana is not an easy task as it needs a lot of effort. The Forest department is taking up measures for removing the plant, authorities state. According to Forest officials, the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, which is home to hundreds of tigers and thousands of elephants, deer, sambars, gaurs and other animals, lantana is found in a large area and the cost for clearing lantana has been estimated to be Rs 1.8 crore per 5 square kilo metre. The condition of many forests in Mysuru region is no different.
The officials say that though the Forest department offers high wages, the labourers, a majority of them tribals, are reluctant to work as lantana injures them and also because huge efforts are required to remove it.
The officials said that in recent years tribals have been using lantana to produce furniture which has a good demand in urban areas.
Published 10 May 2017, 19:00 IST