ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN-INDIA: Beetle Transforms Tribal Lives

By Neena Bhandari Reprint | | Print |

Neena Bhandari

MOTINALA, India, Apr 25 1998 (IPS) - A weird-looking beetle has completely changed the lifestyles of thousands of central Indian tribals after it destroyed entire forests of the sal trees on which their livelihoods had depended.

To prevent the spread of the ‘Hoplocerambyx Spinicornis’ beetle, authorities cleared the sal forests, which though disastrous for the environment in the lon-term, provides employment for the tribals.

“Incessant rains have destroyed our crops and we would have starved except that the we found employment with the forest department cutting down infected trees and transporting the logs to depots,” said Jagoti.

The Motinala village in East Mandla district, where Jagoti has his home, saw the felling of 600,000 sal trees which once played an important role in the socio-economic fabric of the Gonds.

Wood from the sal tree is used build Gond homes, its branches make good firewood, oil is extracted from the seeds and the leaves can be knitted into disposable, environment- friendly, plates and bowls.

The Gonds also eat the nutritious flower and fruit of the sal tree or use it as fodder when the grasses deplete. “These forests have been the source of our sustenance because they shelter medicinal plants, the mahua fruit which goes into liquor and the tendu leaf, which is a substitute for tobacco,” said Dhania Bai a female resident of Chatuakhar village.

During the monsoons, the tribals were busy with the ‘trap- tree’ operation which uses fallen logs to attract and capture the sal borer as it emerges at the onset of the monsoons. Mild winters and hot humid weather favours development of the beetle.

But all that is now a thing of the past. The sal forests are gone and mellifluous chirping of the golden oriole has been replaced by the grind and din of saws and trucks.

The tribals are grateful for the temporary employment.”We earn a daily wage of about a US dollar which is better than having to migrate to distant states to wry as labourers,” said Ranghu Singh of the Kheri Tikaria village.

Farmers who own four or five acres of land are picked up by agents and taken away to work in factories and in the construction business whenever the crops fail.

“We end up being exploited in the towns because we cannot read or write,” said Sambhal Bai of the Panarikhera village. The children have to be left behind in the villages, she said.

Nobody is concerned just yet about what would happen when the forests are completely gone and there is no employment to be had from logging.

For now, the felling continues and after the recent epidemic officials say stringent preventive measures will be taken. This means that large-sized trees, which are most vulnerable must go.

Forest officials say their hearts bleed to to cut down the trees but the deep-boring pest leaves them with little alternative.

The most-effective way to contain the beetle is to catch them before they begin to lay their eggs with ‘trap-trees’ which are essentially logs cut into billets of about eight feet in length.

Adult beetles are strongly attracted by the smell of the fresh sap and are known to fly in from as far away as a mile within five minutes.

Wedges are cut at the end of the logs to encourage the beetles to burrow into and every morning they are dislodged by light tapping and their heads severed.

“Our ancestors have been doing this for years. The government now pays us about USD two cents for each beetle head brought in,” says Pahari Singh of Motinala. Every year millions of beetles are killed in this way.

Once the operation is complete the trap-tress are burnt said tribal whose family earned USD 200 in just one week. The beetles are harmless but the workers often go down with malaria.

“There is no dispensary. We have to travel 15 kms to reach the nearest medical centre and the doctor charges USD 50 cents per visit,” says Phule Bai, pregnant with her fourth child.

Healthy sal trees are able to resist the borer on their own by drowning them in resin but if the larvae attacks them in large numbers they are overwhelmed.

And that seems to happen with regularity every thirty years. The first time it was recorded, in 1914, people attriuted the sudden destruction of the sal forests to fungus or frost.

Similar epidemics broke out in the twenties, the mid- sixties and nineties and scientists were able to identify the cause but not the cure.