The Tamil Nadu Forest Department is to supply firewood from exotic, invasive species removed from the forests of the Nilgiris district, to government tea factories, facilitating both the removal of invasive species from the district and helping to supply firewood at cheap rates to the struggling factories.
A government order, which was passed earlier this year, clears the Forest Department to supply around 15,000 metric tonnes of wood to the State-run Tamil Nadu Tea Plantation Corporation (TANTEA) at a price fixed by the government.
S. Gowtham, District Forest Officer (Nilgiris division), said that the wood supplied to TANTEA factories is from wattle trees, an exotic species that has taken over large swathes of grasslands in the district. Each year, the Forest Department uproots the trees in a systematic manner across reserved forests in the Nilgiris.
Mr. Gowtham said that demand created by the supply of the firewood to TANTEA factories could also help expedite the removal of the trees from the landscape.
The supply of the firewood to TANTEA could also help the struggling tea factories become more profitable in the long-run, as the firewood, minus contractor fees and money paid to middle-men, will be provided at a much lower cost.
Conservationists have welcomed the move, and have said that the system could be expanded to other private tea factories in the district. “Offering firewood from exotic, invasive trees at subsidised rates to private tea estates could further incentivise the removal of exotic trees from the landscape at an accelerated rate, and even help in reviving the sagging fortunes of the tea industry in the long-run,” said a conservationist.
