Commercial agriculture inside reserve forests – the case of natural rubber cultivation in Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, India

Satellite-based remote sensing data was used in conjunction with toposheets of forest maps to estimate the extent of natural rubber cultivation existing inside reserve forests and their immediate peripheries in Kanyakumari district. The study revealed that nearly 15% of the total natural rubber cultivated area in the district was inside reserve forests and another 14% was within a radius of 500 m from the forest boundary. Ironically the entire natural rubber cultivated inside the forests and bulk of that existed adjacent to the forests were owned by a public sector undertaking (PSU) of the state government. This PSU was formed in 1984 with the objective of rehabilitating the Sri Lankan Tamil repatriates. There are more such PSU plantations inside and adjacent to forest periphery in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka that were established with equally noble causes, but they put severe pressure on the forests, fragmenting them and blocking wildlife corridors. Incidents of man–wildlife conflicts are not uncommon in these plantations. A serious scientific introspection is needed about the ecological, economic and social sustainability of these commercial PSU plantations developed inside and close to forests and whether they should be now reverted to forests and set a new and bold example for conservation. The current generation of plantation workers who are descendants of Sri Lankan Tamil repatriates should be trained for better jobs elsewhere