KODAGU ECOSYSTEM UNDER DISTRESS

 

There is no doubt that the oceans produce more oxygen than all the trees on Earth combined. However, forests—especially those with dense, native tree cover—play a vital role in sustaining the planet’s biodiversity, flora, and fauna. It has been conclusively proven that no amount of compensatory or artificially induced forestry can replicate the ecological functions of natural forests. A recent study by IIT Kharagpur, which assessed the photosynthetic efficiency of forests across India, found that many Indian forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide. The study reported a decline in photosynthetic efficiency of up to 12% in some dense forests, primarily due to soil dryness and heat stress. Despite an increase of 1,445 square kilometres in forest cover over the past two decades—resulting in the creation of an additional carbon sink of 2.29 billion tonnes—this “greening” has not translated into a proportional increase in carbon uptake. Even the Five-Member Committee appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice SA Bobde observed that planting five saplings in lieu of one tree was not good enough since a 100-year-old tree cannot be equated with a few fresh saplings. It recommended that for a tree with small crown size, 10 saplings should be planted; 25 saplings for a tree with medium crown size; and 50 saplings for a tree with large crown size. The Karnataka Forest Department’s recent proposal to introduce a green cess of Rs 2 or 3 on urban water bills to fund Western Ghats conservation is a notable policy initiative that blends environmental awareness with participatory funding. The Minister of Forest and Ecology Sri. Eashwar Khandre come out with a strong rationale behind the proposed Green Cess for the Western Ghats, as it is one of the world’s eight “hottest hotspots” of biological diversity and are vital for regulating the monsoon and climate patterns and it serves as the origin point for major rivers like Tunga, Bhadra, Cauvery, Krishna, etc. He is of the opinion that the said cess could be utilised to purchase land from farmers on the edge of forest areas to increase green cover and to take up works that will help prevent man-animal conflict and to create awareness among the public on the importance of the Ghats. The Kodagu/Coorg region, on the slopes of the pristine western-ghats is famously described as the “Scotland of India”, “Switzerland of India”, etc., and is one of the world’s 25 hotspots in biodiversity. The Kodagu/ Coorg region is one of the 867 terrestrial Eco-region, 232 marine eco-regions and 426 distinct freshwater eco-regions in the world and has network of 346 Sacred forests/ groves-7895 Acres (largest such network in the country) with 1.04 Lakh Hacs of Coffee plantations. Kodagu covers 25% faunal species found in India and a part of the Nilgiri biosphere reserve (5500 Sq.Kms), home to two of the most prestigious and important wildlife Schemes, VIZ., Project Elephant (locals say that there are around 3000 elephants, but as per census it is 1013 elephants) and Project Tiger. The region comprises of Brahmagiri Wild Life Sanctuary, Talacauvery Wild Life Sanctuary (WLS) and the Pushpagiri Wild Life Sanctuary (WLS) and that has been included in the UNESCO list of Natural World Heritage sites. The total forest area of Kodagu was 3251 Sq. Kms and in that, 796 Sq. Kms is dense forest area. There is a reduction of contiguous or intact/interior forest cover from 31% to 19% and increase in dry deciduous forest and plantations by 6.25%. There are 16 species Critically Endangered, 18 species are Endangered, 37 are Vulnerable, 13 are near threatened, 66 are least Concern, 13 are data deficient and 762 shows not Evaluated status. (Source: Centre for Environmental Science [CES], IISC, Bengaluru). However, the remote sense data from Karnataka State Remote Sense Application Centre (KSRSAC) depicts only 529 Sq.Kms of dense forest and 621 Sq.Kms of moderately dense forest, despite an increase of forest land by 229 Sq. Kms in the past 23 years. The landuse classification points out that the built-up area has increased by 3772 Hac in the past 23 years with almost 85.8 Acres being developed as new layouts/ resorts (As per the Remote sense map- Ground truth verification not done). Further there is a drastic reduction in the grazing land and agriculture land to an extent of 8473 Hac and 27174 Hac. The waste lands and the water bodies seem to have increased by 5582 Hac and 3352 Hac respectively. Overall, the Built-up area constitutes 4.11% of the entire Kodagu District, whereas the agriculture and forest area constitute 47.5% and 42.7% of the total Kodagu District area respectively. It is proved beyond doubt that the forest habitat getting degraded and wildlife corridors are blocked due to development projects such as tourism (home-stays), illegal sand mining, destruction of safety ridges/ buffer zones, dams, railways, highways, power lines, cultivation, urbanization/ human settlements, teak monoculture, rubber plantation mono-culture, proliferation of invasive species like Lantana, Eupatorium, Parthenium, Weeds, etc,. This has led to the ecological decaying of Kodagu region! From the past few years, there were around six earth quakes in Kodagu, measuring 1.8 to 3.4 on Richter scale, though Kodagu falls in Seismic ZoneIII and is void of any structural discontinuities as per the tectonic map. As per Dr. Ganapathi of Polibetta, the Forest Department planted huge number of teak plantations with an intension to be used for infrastructure projects. Historically, the Britisher’s encouraged the cultivation of Teak wood in Indian forests for their Railway & Development Forest. The Teak plantations have great commercial value, but are useless for the animals in the forest, since the animals can neither feed or breed under the large canopy of Teak plantations. At present the Supreme court has ordered against the cutting of Teak plantations in the forest, which need to be reviewed. The Government need to contest the court decision and take appropriate “Phased Teak removal project” using accurate spatial data in an accountable and transparent manner and strictly replace the same area by Ficus, Jack fruit trees, indigenous trees, berries & fruit trees, Bamboo, Grass Slips, etc .,. This could be one of the important steps to rejuvenate certain forest areas as

 “NEW ELEPHANT HABITATIONS WITHIN THE FOREST”. Unfortunately, 74 Sq.Kms of Kodagu is occupied by Teak Plantations. While the Forest Act bans cutting of trees or even removing the dead trees, the matter need to be addressed by both the Government and the judiciary. Dr. Ganapathi of Polibetta, Kodagu is of the opinion that permission should be given to cut the Jack fruit trees up to a distance of atleast 2 Kms from the boundary of reserve forest, so that the elephants may not enter into the estates, but this could be done only after the natural habitats for Elephants are created. Also, with the 27.1 % decrease in the grazing land, the Elephants raid the existing paddy fields and Coffee plantations causing crop loss and loss of human life. It is very evident that in two decades the Agriculture land area, especially the paddy fields have decreased by 3422.8 Hac (8.27%), and thus many farmers have stopped the cultivation of Paddy in fear of Elephant raids. Karnataka Minister for Forest, Ecology and Environment Mr. Eshwar Khandre recently stated that the department requires at least ₹500 crore to take up works aimed at preventing human-animal conflict- for constructing Railway Barricades (costs Rs. 1.5 Crores / Kms) and pointed out that at least 41 people were killed in animal attacks across the state and 500 cases of crop losses in Kodagu District alone, in the last 10 months. However, Kodagu, just gets Rs. 357 Crores for its overall development in 2023-24. With the reduction of intact forest area, many wild animals, especially the foxes have reduced drastically. This has led to increase of wild boars that enters the human habitations. This in-turn attract Tigers and other wild animals to enter into the human habitations leading to human-animal conflict. The encroachment in forest areas and the depletion in the habitat area for Elephants reduction has led the Elephants to raid the existing paddy fields and Coffee plantations causing crop loss and loss of human life. Upon enquiry with activists, they say that even the Forest department doesn’t have saplings of many indigenous trees, berries & fruit trees hence, the department need to grow those saplings and plant the same within forest areas to create natural habitats, as well as to be distributed to every Gram Panchayath, Schools & Colleges in Kodagu for planting.

 IMPACT OF TOURISM & URBANIZATION: The average annual tourist inflow to Kodagu is around 35 lakhs. Sporadic urbanization is witnessed in most of the 81 Gram Panchayaths and four towns, viz, Kushalnagar. Madikeri, Ponnumpet and Virajpet of Kodagu District. Apart from Hotels and resorts, there are more than 1000 registered “Home Stays” and hundreds of unregistered Home-stays, thus depleting intact forest areas. Due to this, Kodagu is witnessing urban sprawl, leap-frogging, scattered development and ribbon development along the transport corridors and its interiors, that has changed the landscape of the region. Revenue colonies and Unauthorized layouts are formed without adhering to the town-planning principles and standards, wherein, we witness the slopes aren’t respected and are cut and filled to form residential sites making the beautiful slopes flat.

UNMANAGED ESTATES/ PLANTATIONS ARE THE NEW ELEPHANT HABITATS: Many ethnic Kodavas (Original residents of Coorg) have migrated to bigger urban areas like Bengaluru & Mysore, leaving aside their plantations un-managed. This is due to change in their occupation, many legal issues related to their land, as well as that the price of Coffee has been static from the past 25 years, whereas the production cost has increased by three folds. Also, there are about 34 distinct land tenures and the migration from the Coorg Land Regulations to the Karnataka Land Revenue Act-1964, has not been seamless. The land transfer from the Head of the family (“Pattadar”) to the descendants is riddled with problems and the land record and in most cases will not reflect the true owner along with the extent of land. The relevant Act also states that Plantation lands cannot be alienated or converted to any other uses. This has resulted in many legal conflicts within the family and with the adjacent owners, and many are stuck in the court and have lost interest in managing their plantations. With the decrease in habitats for elephants in the forest areas, these unmanaged estates have become the new habitats for Elephants, which raid the adjacent plantations too resulting in Human-Elephant Conflicts.

OPEN UP ELEPHANT CORRIDORS

 From the past two years, I had several interactions with the prominent stakeholders and forest activists of Kodagu District and especially with Col. Muthanna, Dr. Ganapathy, Mr. Sherry Subbaih, Dr. Thammaih, Late Vasu Mandanna, Dr. Kushalapp, etc., regarding the opening of Elephant Corridors. The Government need to carry out a comprehensive study the present migration pattern of Elephants and the assess the viability of those old corridors. Nevertheless, there is a need to immediately open-up the ALLUR-ANECHOWKUR PASSAGE, the THITTIMATHI- SIDDAPUR PASSAGE, the BRAHMAGIRI-BEGUR ELEPHANT CORRIDOR viz., Faith-Narikal-HuvinaKadavu Estate Corridor of Brahmagiri Wild Life Sanctuary (WLS), the ANEKADU- RASALPUR- -DODDAHARAVE (DUBARE) ELEPHANT CORRIDOR- Nanjarayapatna Corridor and the MAKUTA-MUNROT & KADMAKAL REGION- leased forest land to mono-culture rubber plantations during British era. These above-mentioned corridors is surrounded by several human settlements, tribal Settlements and over decades these corridor has witnessed several human-Elephant conflicts due to which many people were killed and many have lost their plantations and paddy produce due to Elephant raids. The opening up of BRAHMAGIRI-BEGUR ELEPHANT CORRIDOR has been mentioned in the CAG report- Performance Audit on Administration of National Parks &Wildlife Sanctuaries in Karnataka - Report No. 6, 2017- Cl. 4.2.1-page-25 and further recommends the formation of Greater Talacauvery Wild Life Sanctuary comprising of Brahmagiri WLS, PushpagirWLSi&Talacauvery region.

CONCLUSION

 Conservation of Forest & Ecology is not just the responsibility of Forest Ministry, but it is also the responsibility of Urban development ministry, the Revenue ministry, the Tourism ministry, the Judiciary and the people of the region! The planners should explore to “freeze the Urbanizable limits” and “increase the Built-up area (Re-densification)” within the existing town/city limits or Urban Local Body Areas in Kodagu district’s towns. This applies to all the towns attached to Western-ghats/ in eco-sensitive regions. The pre-requisite is to prepare the Eco-Regional plans and the Hon’ble Chief Secretary of Karnataka Dr. Shalini Rajneesh has shown great interest to this idea and has directed the Kodagu Deputy Commissioner to initiate action regarding this. Recently a letter has been given to Hon’ble Forest MinisterSri. Eashwar Khandre to lead the initiative for the preparation of “ECO-REGIONAL PLAN” that could be a bench mark study for other regions in Western Ghats. The spatial demand created by economic growth could be met by creating conditions for the development of Satellite towns in plain areas “Beyond the Kodagu Region”. There is also a need to carry out the Road inventory study, road safety audit and road maintenance, management system (RMMS) & “Landslide & flood early warning systems” for Kodagu. There is a need to calibrate the movement of tourists to various destinations within the threshold limits of this eco-sensitive region and ease out unregistered Home-stays. In a very proactive mode, the State Ministry plans to notify to acquire all the pending forest areas. In this context, the Government should also aim at encouraging private investments for creating more natural forests in the areas adjacent to existing forest areas, by encouraging “Private Forests” with strict zoning conditions - and facilitate them to derive benefits from “Carbon credit”, “Green Bonus” or the “Payment for Ecosystem Services” (PES) to conserve the existing green areas. Note: My sincere thanks to the KSRSAC Director Dr. Rajesh & his team for providing relevant maps for this research article.

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Courtesy:  BV ANAND and  Spade A Spade 2025