The Forest Department is aiming to distribute 96,000 saplings of trees to farmers under the Tree Cultivation on Private Land (TCPL), a component of Tamil Nadu Biodiversity Conservation and Greening Project, in Coimbatore Forest Division for the year 2018-19.
District Forest Officer D. Venkatesh told The Hindu that the saplings are currently being raised in nurseries.
“We are planning to distribute the whole saplings to farmers by the end of October. Though some of the areas intended for distribution of saplings received good showers, other places were not. Several farmers have expressed willingness to be part of the TCPL. A good spell of rain during the North-East monsoon would be ideal for the planting of saplings,” said Mr. Venkatesh.
Apart from increasing the tree cover in the villages, the tree-based farming system under TCPL is a sustainable and viable economic enterprise for farmers. They can be cut and sold at the harvesting stage depending on the type of trees. At large, TCPL contributes to the national goal of bringing 33% of the geographical area under forest and tree cover. TCPL also improves the supply of wood from private land for industrial and household consumption and thus reduces exploitation of forest wood.
Mr. Venkatesh said that the large chunk of saplings being raised are of Malai Vembu (Melia dubia), which has high demand as a pulpwood and a raw material for the plywood industry.
“While hardwood like Teak (Tectona grandis) takes 15 to 20 years to attain growth, Malai Vembu can be harvested in five to six years,” said Mr. Venkatesh.
At Lingapuram near Sirumugai, 5,000 seedlings of Malai Vembu and Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) planted under TCPL in 2017-18 have now attained significant growth. They were planted in banana plantations when S. Ramasubramanian was the Conservator of Forests and N. Satheesh was District Forest Officer.
“The seedlings attained surprising growth in 10 months. The trunks had a girth between 30 to 40 cm at height of four to five feet from the ground when measured recently,” said Sirumugai Forest Range Officer E.N. Manoharan.