Greens warn against creating nurseries in Shola forests

Greens are seeing red over the forest department’s project to create nurseries by destroying the Shola forests at Sampigekatte near Mahal village in the Mutthodi range forest.

More than 10,000 pits have been dug using earthmovers in the Shola grasslands in these eco-sensitive hill, situated at a height of 6,000 feet above sea level.

The unscientific project is destroying the serene ecology of the place, say environmentalists.

Tourists throng the area, situated in the Western Ghats, all through the year to take in the beauty of the place.

Jeevan, a software engineer from Bengaluru who was on a trip to the place, said that the project would deal a deathly blow to the ecosystem here.

G Veeresh, a local environmentalist, said that the project had been going on for several years in the region. It would harm the complexity of the forest, he said.
Veeresh argues that the ecosystem of the place was suited for Shola forests and growing any other species would be disastrous.

The system to supply stored water to the forest would suffer a setback, Veeresh said. It would also destroy water sources, the environmentalist said.

Previous efforts a flop

Efforts to create nurseries in Kemmannugundi, Bababudangiri and Mullayyanagiri in the last 30 to 40 years were a flop. Yet, the department is spending money on the
project, he said.

Visitors are worried that the exotic kurinji flowers form a blue blanket on the forest once in 12 years and this could become a thing of the past, if the Shola forests are destroyed, say environmentalists.

The greens fear that rare medicinal herbs and plants may be lost due to the digging up of the forest using earthmovers.