COIMBATORE: Nearly half of the unique Longwood Shola forest in Kotagiri, which has received The Queens of Commonwealth Canopy (QCC) accreditation, is allegedly dominated by invasive species. Also, polluted water is allegedly released from floriculture greenhouses in the streams.
According to sources, out of the 250 acres of forest (116 hectares), there are Shola tree species only in 90 acres and the remaining areas are occupied by the invasive species such as acacia, camphor tree, eucalyptus, wattle, pine, cypress trees, lantana camara and centrum robusticu.
“We have been requesting the forest department to take steps to remove these exotic species for more than two decades. Once the exotic species would be removed, the Shola tree species will rejuvenate automatically in the same place and there won’t be any need to plant native Shola tree species.
With the help of volunteers and college students, we have completely removed shoots of the invasive eucalyptus species that was grown in 15 acres of area in Shola forest for continuously two years on experimental bases. This has yielded good results. However, the forest department remains a mute spectator as to how to remove such huge exotic species even in this small area,” said K J Raju, coordinator of the Longwood Shola Watchdog Committee, which was formed in 1996.
“John Sullivan visited Kotagiri for the first time in Nilgiris and he stated that there was a stream for every 200 meters, Going with his record, the Nilgiris should have a total of 5,000 streams. However, recently they have vanished. Our aim is to rejuvenate all the streams. Likewise, there were grasslands for about 8,000 hectares earlier, but now one has to go to the Mukurthi National Park to see grasslands.
We have also readied a proposal to rejuvenate 25,000 hectares of native species and for this we will get additional 40,000 TMC of water, since Shola is water conserving species. In a study, we have also found that one hectare of Shola forest can originate 750 litres of water in one second,” he added.
District Forest Officer (DFO) Bhosale Sachin Tukaram told TNIE that the state government is expected to release a fund of Rs 5.2 crore as part of conservation of Longwood Shola forest, under which, a part of the amount will be used for removal of invasive species. However he said that out of 116 hectares, invasive species is spread only in 20 hectares.