In a bid to make forests safer for wildlife in the former composite Adilabad district, the Forest Department has proposed to denotify 26 of the nearly 80 beedi leaf units in the area. Nine of these fall in the Chennur and Bellampalli Divisions of Mancherial district in Kawal Tiger Reserve (KTR), Forest Circle; 16 in Asifabad and Kagaznagar divisions, and one in Utnoor Division, all in Adilabad Circle.
“The denotification orders are likely to come in a day or two,” reveals KTR field director C.P. Vinod Kumar, who is also the Conservator of Forests, Adilabad Circle. “The move is aimed at controlling forest fires in the given areas so that the movement of tigers goes unhindered,” he points out.
Fighting forest fires
Thousands of fires are lit in the forest every year between mid January and April, allegedly by people connected with beedi leaf collection. Instead of spending money and putting in efforts to prune tendu plants at the beginning of the season, these people set the forest floor on fire which replaces burnt tendu plants with fresh ones.
“We will tell villagers about the denotification once the orders are issued so that they do not indulge in collection of beedi leaves any more,” Mr. Vinod Kumar says. In addition to relief from forest fires, wild animals will also be disturbed less due to decreased foray into the forest by villagers who go out to collect beedi leaves, he asserts.
To impact livelihoods
“The denotification of the units will severely impact livelihoods of thousands of people in rural areas,” says P. Vara Prasad Rao, president of Beedi Leaves and Forest Contractors Association, Hyderabad. “There is no guarantee that the incidence of fires will come down as the major reason for fires is the carelessness of villagers,” he avers.
“The Maharashtra government has notified beedi leaf units in the buffer areas of neighbouring Tadoba and Pench Tiger Reserves,” he says. “We have also taken up a campaign against forest fires in areas of our operation in Maharashtra,” he adds to indicate that contractors too are a conscientious lot.
Countering the argument, Mr. Vinod Kumar reasons, “In Maharashtra, the government has great support from people who refrain from igniting forest fires and disturbing the habitat. We can’t take chances considering heavy movement of tigers from Maharashtra into our forest territory.”
