Recommendations galore to rejuvenate the green lung

CHENNAI: A nature trail, an education centre and more tree cover are some of the changes planned for the Nanmangalam Reserve Forest (NRF). A little over a year ago, Care Earth was asked to come up with recommendations for rejuvenating reserve forests. The NGO studied the NRF among others and proposed walling off the forest, introducing gates for entry and safeguarding the property against unauthorised entry.
The 320.92-hectare NRF, with eucalyptus trees over nearly 100 hectares, is a couple of km west of the Pallikaranai marsh. The forest, which once housed a shooting camp for the army, had been a quarry. That stopped three years after the passing of the Forest Conservation Act in 1982, disallowing quarrying in reserve forests.
About 1,500 species of flora and fauna survive and over 60 species of birds thrive. The NRF is now an open toilet for locals. "The pressure from anthropogenic interference are many and we spoke to many local communities over what needs to be done to rejuvenate the NRF," said C Arivazhagan, conservation biologist, Care Earth.
In Care Earth's report, tree-planting is the most cited recommendation, followed by the need to develop NRF as a park or nature reserve. The team also reinforced the need to maintain it as a shrub forest and not introduce new plant species. "In fact, not planting new saplings for the next five years is highly recommended," say conservationists.
"The eucalyptus trees don't belong to this terrain, but they are there. Removal would endanger other smaller shrubs on which birds and insects feed and will interfere with the ecosystem," says KVRK Thirunaranan, founder, The Nature Trust. Arivazhagan feels there is nothing wrong. "There are merits and demerits of having eucalyptus. Earlier, it was used for pulp wood and so it was raised in most of the reserve forest area. Now, no one uses eucalyptus, except for oil extraction in Nilgiris," he adds. But some studies suggest that eucalyptus evaporates more groundwater and allows invasive species to grow underneath, he adds. "Therefore, we suggested in our report that the eucalyptus plantation be replaced with native tree species to make the reserve forest more diverse."
"However, future planting should ensure that only hardy species that can flourish during the monsoon and survive the dry periods should be introduced," says Thirunaranan.
The forest department is compiling a report on the proposed changes which will be submitted to the state government. "We have had a series of meetings to review the report submitted by Care Earth and the consolidated report is being readied," said district forest officer Nihar Ranjan. "Once the official clearance comes, changes will be effected."