The Forest Department seems to be unequal to the task of containing forest fires in the State what with nearly 1,000 fire alerts given out in February by the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership, a United States operated weather satellite. Former united Adilabad district, which encompasses the Kawal Tiger Reserve (KTR) and is in the eye of a storm for tiger poaching, accounts for 150 of the total number of fires, most of them coming from the core and buffer areas of Reserve itself.
Conservationists and a section of Forest Department have suggested banning of beedi leaf collection activity (which does not contribute significantly to the rural economy) in order to control the incidence of the invariably man made fires. It is a well known fact that forest fires are caused, among others, by villagers in habitations close to forests so that the burnt tendu or abnus plants sprout healthy leaves.
Since pruning of the old plant is time consuming, the villagers set the forest floor on fire to burn down the plant. The burnt plant regenerates leaves which makes it easy for the villagers to collect the tendu leaves. Also to blame for forest fires are farmers cultivating lands close to forests who burn the debris left over from last season and spread the fire into the forests and the animal herders who look for fresh green fodder to come up from the ashes.
Fire monitoring
The Utnoor and Sirchelma ranges of KTR account for at least one third of the instances of fires according to the website of the Forest Survey of India which uses the US weather satellite for fire monitoring.
The Telangana State Forest Development Corporation Limited, Hyderabad, auctions the beedi leaf units across the State. For the current year, it has called for tenders to 79 units of which 31 are located in the KTR buffer part in Mancherial and Nirmal districts while the remaining are located in Adilabad and Kumram Bheem Asifabad district.
Though collection of beedi leaf is banned in KTR it is a well known fact that the activity goes on in the core area illegally. There are about 40,000 beedi leaf collectors in old united Adilabad whose activity during May sees a turnover of about ₹15 crore.
Alternate livelihood
“In case the beedi leaf collection is banned, concerned villagers can be deployed in weeding out invasive weeds like lantana and hyptis which are a threat to the biodiversity,” opined conservationist Y. Charan, a Hyderabad-based former researcher with Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History under the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Control.
