A total of 276 hectares of land belonging to the Tamil Nadu Tea Plantation Corporation (TANTEA) in Gudalur and Pandalur taluks are to be handed over to the forest department in a bid to reduce human-animal interactions in the landscape.
Srinivas R Reddy, Managing Director of TANTEA, told The Hindu that the lands which are to be handed over to the forest department constitute only around 5% of the lands which are under the control of TANTEA. “These lands are primarily located around the government tea estates, where tea cannot be grown due to the landscape as well as due to the presence of animals,” said Mr. Reddy.
‘Jobs will not be hit’
Mr. Reddy said that the handing over of the land to the forest department will not have any impact on the jobs available to the more that 4,000 people who work in the government plantations in the Nilgiris.
“Currently, the lands which are to be handed over are being measured, and constitute small patches adjoining the estates,” added Mr. Reddy.
Officials said that more than 5,000 hectares of land in the Nilgiris were under the control of TANTEA, of which only 276 hectares in the Gudalur and Pandalur regions, in Cherambadi, Cherangode and Nelliyalam would be handed over to the department.
District Forest Officer, Gudalur division, Sumesh Soman, said that once the land is brought under the control of the department, afforestation and restoration would be undertaken in these lands to provide a buffer between the estates and the surrounding forests.
The department hopes that such a buffer would provide a contiguous “corridor” between different forest patches to exist whereby wildlife, especially elephants, can cross between the small oases of forests dispersed in the Gudalur and Pandalur landscapes, which are surrounded by massive tea plantations and agricultural lands.
Forest department officials said that these measures can help to minimise human-animal interactions in the region. In 2018, a total of eight persons were killed in confrontations with elephants in the Gudalur and Pandalur regions, of which many incidents occurred close to tea and coffee estates.
