Mangrove forest on chopping block again

Ignatius Pereira, KOLLAM,  
The Hindu, January 4, 2016

The Ayiramthengu mangrove forests at Alapad panchayat in Kollam district, restored by the government eight years ago, is now being destroyed by a government agency for another scheme.

Environment activist V.K. Madhusoodanan said that in the past couple of weeks at least 10 acres of the restored mangroves had been razed using earthmovers to lay a road and construct a sluice across a canal to link the estuarine island of Ayiramthengu with three such islands in the adjacent Alappuzha district for a tourism project. The work is being carried out by the Agency for Development of Aquaculture Kerala (ADAK).

Pearl spot hatchery

The government had handed over the entire island to ADAK for raising a pearl spot (karimeen) hatchery. An ADAK authority who did not wish to be quoted said that the road was being laid under a plan approved by the government.

The irony is that the 50-acre Ayiramthengu mangrove had served as the biggest pearl spot natural hatchery before its destruction, Mr. Madhusoodanan said.

After the tsunami in December 2004, the importance of mangrove forests as an effective natural barrier to sea surges gained recognition. But the paradox at Ayiramthengu is that it is the restored mangroves of an area devastated by the tsunami which is being wantonly destroyed.

Illicit breweries

Soon after the ban on arrack in 1996, the mangrove forest became a safe haven for illicit breweries.

The trees were felled and used as firewood for breweries. In 1998 the government announced a restoration programme. A Fisheries Department team under the K.M. Lethi, the then Deputy Director (Fisheries), camped at Ayiramthengu and planted nearly 10,000 red mangrove saplings.

Red mangroves were selected because Ayiramthengu used to be the State’s biggest natural habitat of this mangrove species.

By 2008, Ayiramthengu regained its past glory in 25 acres. But two years later destruction restarted when the State Fisheries Resource Management Society began dredging the area to create ponds for a fish hatchery under an aquaculture programme. In 2013, the island was handed over to ADAK.

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7 leopard deaths in Kerala last year

Ignatius Pereira,  KOLLAM,  
The Hindu, January 3, 2016

Leopard deaths from the State during 2015 stood at a low of seven compared to 352 deaths reported from across the country. Besides, of 76 leopard skins seized from different parts of the country, only one was from Kerala.

Statistics provided by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) for 2015 show that poaching accounted for two of the seven leopard deaths in Kerala. Four leopards were found dead in forests and one died after being run over by a vehicle.

The accident occurred in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary at Muthanga on the Kozhikode-Mysore National Highway in April. The vehicle involved could not be identified.

The leopard skin was seized at Shanghumugham in Thiruvananthapuram in September. The seizure was made when four persons attempted to sell the pelt.

Chief Wildlife Warden G. Harikumar told The Hindu that one of the prime factors that could have contributed towards the low leopard mortality rate in the State was the Forest Department’s efforts in preventing the emergence of a market for wild animal parts. “Stray incidents are quickly detected and all involved are brought before the law,” he added.

He said the department had created awareness among the people that killing of wild animals was a grave offence. Another factor was the intelligence gathering activity of the department.

O.P. Kaler, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Biodiversity Cell), said besides availability of prey inside the forests, geographical and awareness factors have contributed to the security of leopards. Mr. Kaler said though a leopard straying into human habitations was comparatively low in Kerala, when that happened, the cat went unnoticed in most cases because of the protective cover it got outside the forest areas.

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Natural history museum coming up

Ignatius Pereira, KOLLAM,  
The Hindu, January 2, 2016

The doors of the Forest Department’s first natural history museum coming up at a cost of Rs.1.08 crore at the forest complex at PTP Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram, will soon be thrown open to the public. The project is expected to be launched later this month.

Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Infrastructure and HRD) Shripal, who designed the project, told The Hindu that the museum will provide visitors an opportunity to explore natural history, ecology, and a variety of forests of the State through dioramas which showcase typical wildlife in a range of Western Ghats locations, including tropical evergreen, deciduous, shola, and grasslands. It has a marine wildlife section as well.

The museum has been set up on two floors. Though the prime target is students, it is informative to all age groups, says Mr. Shripal. The museum is equipped with audio presentations to enable visitors get an in-depth understanding of the State’s wildlife from the forest floor to the forest canopy.

The museum introduces the visitor to the forests through a description of the State’s geography and climate and moves on to nature and natural history of the forests. There are two leopards and a tiger in the museum stuffed in original pelt. The visitor will even get an opportunity to feel the texture of a true leopard skin.

But the most informative wing of the museum is the one dealing with sandalwood. The section has original sandalwood tree parts on display and the star attraction is the root portion of a huge tree, the part of the tree having the highest oil content. The section provides information on all therapeutic and cosmetic uses of sandalwood.

Other interesting sections include a forest vegetation map of Kerala, diorama on flightless birds of the State’s forests, information on birds, reptiles, plants and insects found in the Kerala forests. There are also dioramas on typical wildlife range locations to make the visitor get the feel of being inside a forest surrounded by native wild animals.

After the visit, children can participate in a quiz programme.

Mr. Shripal says visitors will be charged a token entry fee.

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Eating into Ashtamudi, with impunity

Ignatius Pereira, KOLLAM,  
The Hindu, December 31, 2015

Even as there is no dearth of warnings from the official side of strong action against encroachers, encroachments of massive scale continue unabated along the Ashtamudi Lake in Kollam district.

The encroachers often feel that it is their right to encroach upon the lake, listed as a Ramsar site.

Of late, it is the estuarine islands of the lake that are expanding in size due to encroachments. Large portions of the lake adjoining the islands are encircled with a foundation and then reclaimed. During the holidays on December 24 and 25, several boat loads of sand and debris were dumped into the encircled encroachments.

Ashtamudi Lake enthusiast V.K. Madhusoodanan said that as a result of the encroachments, the lake, which had an area of more than 61 sq.km., has shrunk to less than 34 sq.km. ‘‘If this is the manner in which a Ramsar site is protected, then in my opinion the time has dawned to strip the Ashtamudi Lake of its Ramsar tag,’’ he said.

This is happening to a wetland which perhaps has the largest number of environment activists in the State fighting to protect it, he said. Way back in 2006, an extensive survey of the lake by the Revenue Department had found that 103 acres of the lake had been encroached upon. But, even after 10 years, only less than 10 acres of the identified encroachments had been cleared. The clearing operation was subsequently dropped.

Mr. Madhusoodanan said that in the last couple of years, more than one sq.km. of the lake had been newly-encroached and most of that along the estuarine islands. After a close study of the lake last week, he said that encroachments into the lake had taken place or taking place along the estuarine islands of Cheekenthuruth, Kerolithuruth, Kavanad Puthenthruth, Kanakkanthurth, Pushpamangalamthuruth, Fatimathuruth, Thomasthuruth and Josephthuruth.

He said this was again in spite of the fact that the Coastal Regulatory Zone notification 2011 specifically declared estuarine islands as no development zones. The estuarine islands were extremely fragile ecosystems and the core marine fish spawning areas because they fell along the inter-tidal zone. Yet there was total apathy on the side of the authorities concerned, Mr. Madhusoodanan said.

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Two genetically different populations

Ignatius Pereira
KOLLAM,  
The Hindu, November 28, 2015

The lion-tailed macaques ( Macaca silenus ) which are found only in forests from the central to the southernmost tip of the Western Ghats are not a single entity. A recent scientific study has shown that the 4,000 monkeys that survive now comprise two genetically different populations.

The most prominent break in the Western Ghats is the Palghat gap, which is about 40 km wide. South of the gap, the macaque habitats are highly fragmented, compared to the habitats in the contiguous forests in the north. The study shows that the lion-tailed macaques living north of the Palghat gap are genetically different from those living in the south.

The study says that although the lion-tailed macaque has a relatively wide range south of the gap, its area of occupancy is small and severely fragmented. Small populations in isolation, especially in fragmented landscapes, are known to lose genetic variability, suffer from inbreeding depression, and become genetically differentiated among themselves.

The finding is that those in the south have low mitochondrial DNA diversity compared to those in the north. “These populations can be considered as separate conservation units and should be treated separately in captive breeding programmes. Any reintroductions to the wild should be done after ascertaining the correct geographic origin of the individual.”

The study recommends that some of these isolated fragments be connected by planting food trees that would establish canopy corridors between them to facilitate gene flow.

The study, ‘Prehistoric and recent vicariance events shape genetic structure and diversity in endangered lion-tailed macaque in the Western Ghats: Implications for conservation,’ published in Plos One , a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal, on November 11, was conducted by Muthuvarmadam S. Ram, Minal Marne, Ajay Gaur, Honnavalli N. Kumara, Mewa Singh, Ajith Kumar, and Govindhaswamy Umapathy.

It was jointly funded by the Department of Biotechnology under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology and the Central Zoo Authority of India.

The study was carried out in the forests of Aghanashini, Karkala, Kundapur, and Kudremukh in Karnataka, Muthanga, Vazhikkadavu, Silent Valley, Nelliampathy, Kodanad, Vazhachal, Kollam, and Amboori in Kerala, and Anamalai, Meghamalai, and Kalakkad in Tamil Nadu.

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Bird survey bares issues of concern

Ignatius Pereira
KOLLAM,  
The Hindu, February 1, 2015 

The annual Asian Waterfowl Census (AWC) held in six select wetlands last Saturday in Kollam has revealed matters of concern and elation for birdwatchers.

While the waterbird population was a cause for excitement, questions have been raised about the conservation of the traditional wetland habitats of such birds.

The census was carried out in association with the WWF-India and the Social Forestry Division of the Forest Department.

The wetlands covered are Kandachira - Sakthikulangara harbour, Pallikkodi -Neendakara harbour, Thodiyur - Vattakkayal - Vellanathuruthu, Chittumala - Karali marshes, Polachira, and Kappil beach. The highest count was from Polachira, near Chathannur, from where around 3,500 birds were counted. Among them were five types of wild ducks, namely lesser whistling ducks, pigmy cotton goose, garganey ducks, spot billed ducks, and northern pintails, the latter three being migratory. The Neendakara harbour and Pallikkodi wetlands stood second with a count of around 1,500 birds, of which the majority were little egrets. Migratory birds such as painted stork, greater sand plover, lesser sand plover, grey plover, green shank, green sandpiper, brown headed gulls, and whiskered terns were sighted at Thodiyur - Vattakkayal and on the Vellanathuruthu beach.

Though Kandachira is a habitat for a number of black-tailed godwits, this year only one bird was sighted. But plenty of other migratory birds were observed there. The count of swimming birds preferring deeper waters such as ducks and cormorants was high. But the count at the Karali marshes, once a haven for water birds, was a disappointment. The wetlands, which used to shelter more than 5,000 purple swamphens, is now home to only few. What used to be a shallow wetland is now a deep lake due to sand-mining. The Polachira wetlands seem comparatively less disturbed.

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