Keeping in view their dietary habits, the Terai-central forest division is going to develop orchards of wild fruit trees in its territory along with miscellaneous forests for the elephants and other animals of the herbivorous family whose presence is rich in that division.
Since shrinking of green fodder fields is a common phenomenon nowadays even in a State like Uttarakhand, incidents of wild animals’ intrusion into the human habitats for food have also gone up. So, this is also a reason behind developing the forests with adequate presence of wild fruit plants so that cases of man-animal conflicts could be minimised. We have decided to have plantation of wild fruits in 15 percent area of our forest division from next season, said the officials concerned of the Terai-central forest division.
Notably, the Terai-central forest division carried out plantation in a total 996 hectare area in this season i.e. 2014-2015 as the officials concerned informed. A total 772688 plants were planted in this 996 hectare area during the monsoon period this year , apart from sowing of 107 quintal seeds, they added.
It is worth mentioning here that keeping in view the need of the green fodder of a variety of wildlife animals that exist in its territory, the Terai-central forest division has already started developing miscellaneous forests in its area. Among others Eucalyptus, Poplar, ‘Gutel’, ‘Amaltas’ Oaks, Shisam, Thuner, Tejpat, and wild fruit plants like ‘Kaphal’ ‘Jamun’, ‘Belpatri’ and all other varieties of plants which are suitable to the climatic conditions of the said terai region, are being planted under this miscellaneous plantation programme, the officials concerned informed.
The fact is that terai-central forest division is also sensitive from man-animal conflict point of view as the aforesaid forest division is largely surrounded by the human habitations and agricultural fields. Following decay in green fodder of late, the herbivorous, including the elephants, which are mostly found in the plains,have also begun to encroach upon the human habitations, damaging crop fields.
Hopefully, availability of all kinds of green fodder after developing the miscellaneous forests, including wild fruit orchards, will help us minimise the movements of the wild animals like elephants towards the human habitats, added the officials concerned.