A suspected poachers’ haven that continuously burns during the summer season is Mysoremala, an ecologically sensitive terrain on the Western Ghats at Kodiyathur grama panchayat in Kozhikode district.
The huge porcupine population in the area attracts hunters. Since the animals’ sharp spines are quite a handful for the hunters, they set the area on fire and wait. Porcupines emerge from their hideouts, many half-burnt, shorn of their spines. They are easily caught. Nobody bothers about the fire left behind.
“Often, tribespeople in the hilly area are blamed for wildfire. But in reality, the Forest Department does not know who sets fire to the forests. They are just creating a smokescreen by blaming the Adivasis,” says a resident living nearby.
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He says that some of the quarry owners too ignite forest fires to clear revenue land and further their business.
Residents settled in the foothills of Mysoremala say that forest fires have been a regular phenomenon in the terrain for long.
There has been no serious attempt to find the reasons for the fires. In one of such incident last month, it took several days for the flames to subside. By then, the fire had caused massive destruction of forest resources.
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Legal concerns
Forest Department officials say several acres of land in Mysoremala are entangled in legal disputes and they will not be able to intervene till disputes about the status of the land are settled.
Divisional Forest Officer K.K. Sunil Kumar told The Hindu that the department is trying to check poaching of porcupines. The department has constituted a team of 100 persons to alert the forest guards in the event of forest fires, he adds.
Farms are lost
The fires are also a matter of concern for farmers in the forest buffer zone.
Recently, around 15 farmers living near Koovakollimala in Narippatta grama panchayat suffered heavy losses as a wildfire ate into their farms.
Around two acres of rubber, coconut, and plantain farms were destroyed. Farmers from Narangathode, an farming belt in Kodenchery grama panchayat, too suffered huge losses in a recent fire outbreak. Kunnappally Biju, a farmer, here lost around half-an-acre of rubber plantation.
Similar incidents have caused panic among farmers at Myladummala in Payimbra, where the Fire and Rescue Services Department had a tough time dousing a forest fire recently.