Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Nelliyampathy Riddle

Try locating Nelliyampathy Hills on the Google Earth. It is a fascinating hill station on the tourist map of Western Ghats in Kerala where thousands flock to see the picturesque Seetharkundu view point from where the famous Palghat gap starts and where the Karappara River emerges through the coffee and tea plantations. What neither do tourists notice nor can google earth reflect are the plantation labour that is flocking to the neighboring Tamil Nadu plains for jobs. Falling productivity, increasing cost of production and reduced control over prices have only added to the impact of subtle climate change. The beauty of Nelliyampathy is only on the surface!

Nelliyampathy is a microcosm of change in the high altitude areas of the entire Western Ghats. The hills agro-ecosystems are dominated by tea, coffee, rubber and other monoculture plantations like oil palm – an estimated 750 sq. km under tea, at least 1,500 sq. km of coffee plantations and some 825 sq. km of cardamom cover have been reported in the Western Ghats. While around 40 per cent of natural vegetation was replaced with plantation crops between 1920 and 1990, it also became a source of livelihoods to as many as 3.6 lakh workers in Kerala alone. But all that is seemingly changing as more and more of plantation labour is pushed out of jobs owing to water scarcity, reduced productivity and falling prices. The high hills are also becoming ecologically and climatically incapable of supporting the existing crops, leave alone the new.

The eco-restoration of degraded forest patches between plantations and abandoned plantations areas, restoration of wild life corridors between plantations and other agricultural areas, shift to organic farming practices are critical to the rejuvenation of the hill streams and shola that give birth to the rivers in the Western Ghats. Only by doing so can an year-round flow in Karappara and thousands of such hill streams be restored, which currently have reduced flow immediately after the north-east monsoons. Coupled with reduced moisture in the soil and humidity in the atmosphere, irrigation through groundwater has intensified. Excessive pumping of groundwater in turn has dried small streams feeding into the river. A cycle of destruction has been set in motion!

As many planters are reverting to traditional crops like coffee, one wonders if we have come full circle! Is nature forcing us to mend ways and revert to sustainable land use? The answer is hard to come by. However, it is time the plantation industry and the Spices board wake up to the inevitability of the situation. For sure, the drier winds and desiccating weather can neither support plantations nor the tourists. The paradox of Nelliyampathy is out in the open. The tell-tale signs are reverberating across the entire Western Ghats. Is anyone listening!

Author Dr A Latha, a frequent visitor to the place, is pained at the steady transformation of Nelliyampathy