Saving India's Sal Trees

The typical yellowed crown of an affected sal tree.






Sal borer beetle (Hoplocerambyx spinicornis).






 
By Pushp K Jain
A sweeping programme of tree felling to deal with an epidemic of sal borer beetle has outraged conservationists, who say nature may be better equipped to deal with the crisis than human beings are.

New Delhi, India: An infestation of borer beetles has prompted the felling of some three quarters of a million sal trees in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, in spite of protests from conservationists and the intervention of the Indian government.

Some three million trees have been affected by the sal borer (Hoplocerambyx spinicornis) and the state government - alarmed by the extent of the infestation - fell back on a law to control the beetle that came into force 70 years ago, when attitudes were very different from the present concern for conservation.

Modern ways of controlling the sal borer are being researched in many forest research institutions, but this latest epidemic shows that foresters and scientists have failed, according to A P Dwivedi, a senior official of the state's forest conservation service.

The state government decided that the only way to control the infestation was to fell most of the affected trees, and it was supported by an expert committee for sal borer affected areas appointed by the national Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

But the committee's approval in December 1997 caused an outcry from conservationists, especially when it became clear that there was a plan to fell affected sal trees in protected areas such as the Kanha Tiger Reserve. WWF-India, the national organization of the World Wide Fund For Nature, strongly advised against felling in the wildlife reserves. Such criticism brought a halt to felling in mid-January this year and a special task force, with a wildlife subcommittee, was established to review the situation. The task force, however, could not reach a consensus over cutting down trees that may still be alive. The wildlife group felt there should be no felling or large-scale salvaging of infested and dead sal trees in the reserves, fearing that such action might lead to ecological disturbances.

Yet in February the MoEF, without consulting the steering committee, issued a notification virtually allowing the state government to continue felling. On the crucial issue of stocking the infested timber far away from the sal forests, the notification left loopholes  stating "felled material should preferably be located at least five kilometres away from the sal forest".

This served merely to inflame the controversy, and the Indian Supreme Court stepped in to order a halt to the felling. It later permitted the cutting down of dead trees only and ordered proper re-marking of affected trees. The state government complied, but the expert committee supervising the operation reported that the affected area was too large for the operation to be carried out properly.

Part of the problem is that felling trees is only a first step in controlling the borer. It is vital that logs are stored well away from the forests and that stumps are burned and debris disposed of before the onset of the monsoon, so that no food is left for the beetles. It is currently estimated that about a quarter of the material left by felling remains in the forests and there are doubts over whether the government can complete its operations before the monsoon.

At the same time, critics point out that a previous epidemic, between 1923 and 1928, affected seven million trees yet only about 5 per cent were felled. The government's policy in the present crisis would mean that, of the three million affected trees, about 30 per cent would have been felled in just one year.

Some officials who favour felling wonder what will happen if affected trees are not removed, many fearing that entire sal forests could be wiped out. But experts believe such pessimism is unwarranted, saying sal forests long ago learned to live with the borer and will continue to survive so long as human intervention does not upset the balance. It has even been suggested that 1-2 per cent of trees categorised as dead may recover, and there are already reports of partial or complete recovery in some of the trees re-marked as dead.

Only nature can tell whether the percentage of recovering trees will be high enough to save the forests, but if the axe is not put aside to give nature that chance, we shall never know.

*Pushp K Jain is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi, India. fficer with WWF-Brazil