Bulk teak planting draws ire of greens

KOCHI: The move by the Hindustan Machine Tools to plant large number of teak saplings in their wooded campus in Kalamassery with help of forest department has raised the eyebrows of environmentalists in the city with Cochin Natural History Society writing to the central PSU to apply principles of ecological restoration while planting trees and not adopt monoculture.
While appreciating the initiative to plant trees in the area where trees were mowed down for Kochi Metro Casting yard, CNHS objected to the unscientific manner in which the planting was being done.
In the letter, they pointed out that a large part of the area where tree saplings were now planted became ecologically degraded after natural tree cover was axed. “We are very much concerned that a large area of the land is planted with teak saplings in a monoculture plantation fashion. This is a completely ill thought out move,” the letter said highlighting the fact that teak is a notoriously water guzzling tree species - even more than the eucalyptus and wattle.
“We tried to talk to senior officials of both HMT limited and social forestry division, Ernakulam, and expressed our concern over the manner in which the tree planting is being done and especially the decision to plant teak trees in a monoculture plantation mode. The reason expressed by these officials is that it will economically benefit HMT when it’s cut and sold,” said Vishnupriyan Kartha, secretary, CNHS.
A senior executive of the PSU said they are not planting only teak. “We are doing this with the assistance of forest department and we are planting fruit sapling as well,” said Balamurugesan S, general manager (technical), HMT.
According to CNHS, teak plantation can deplete ground water table in the area, thereby affecting the water security and livelihood of people living nearby.