Palni Hills Conservation Council 25th Annual Report Introduction: The year has been a difficult difficult one with many donor agencies and support groups withdrawing their assistance to projects. The first casuality of the shortfall in budgets are reflected in allocation for environment and conservation works. The social sector needs, which has immediate benefits are addressed first. Thus our support base of 12 donors, has shrunk to six and correspondingly the project works have been reduced to match the available grants only. The seedlings produced and distributed to tree growers has been approximately 150000 only. Land Use and Ownership: A notable feature of the beneficiaries of the tree growing efforts has been the rise of non-farming land owners. It has been observed from sale of seedling records from all nurseries that most buyers were from professions other than farming with traditional farmers becoming a minority. The provision of state laws permitting non farmers to buy land is only available in Tamil Nadu which has led to abnormal speculative bubble in land values. This forces many would be tree growers to abandon ideas about future returns from land and look for immeiate cash in sale of land. Climate Change induced weather The poor precipitation during 2009 and for most of 2010 has adversely affected the availability of seeds from forest stands and farmers tree orchards. Further the plains tree nurseries of Viruveedu; Kudhirayar and the middle hills nurseries at SVK Kombai ; Periyur were all temporarily shut down with water shortages affecting production of seedlings. With climate forcing systems coming to play often in the form of El Nino and La Nina espisodes with recod breaking temperatures leading to forest fires even in Northern Hemisphere it is difficult to foresee a great future for tree growing. Perhaps a more rewarding future awaits growing of perennial shrubs, creepers and grasses that can withstand long drought periods. Conservation of Biodiversity: The tree numbers have been reduced due to the above reasons but we are still producing more than 140 species of plants. Which is aimed at reducing the spread of invasives that are now threatening food supplies world wide. Our experience at the coastal Cauvery delta shows that almost all water channels and uncultivated lands are affected by invasive weeds, whose removal will be a costly affair in these days of poor manual labour availability. Hence the need to grow more native no invasive plants. Financial or energy crisis ? The current crisis which began with the collapse of large banks in the West and recesssion in most developed economies is a mirror image of the energy crisis, which culminated in peaking of conventional world oil supplies during 2005 at 73.5 milion bbl perday. The run up in energy prices leading to a momentary peak on price per bbl of oil at $148 in August 2008 and heralded the recesssion. Thus we now enter the era of reduced energy use and contracting supplies. Our trials with bioenergy crops, primarily Jatropha curcas have been affected by incidence of pest and disease. The trials indicate a much lower net energy return on energy investment for biodiesel. The future of energy growth is in bio methane or methane farming. We are nowstarting trials with alternative feed stocks with improved designs for farm biogas digesters to make fuel from farm waste. Here by the executive committee presents the works at the various centres of the council. The outgoing Executive Committee which met 10 times to conduct the affairs of the council herewith submits its annual report for the year 2009-2010. The membership stands as follows: 1. Life members - 184 2. Annual members - 22 3. Institutional members - 4 The committee was constituted by the following members and office bearers 1. Mr.R.Kannan - President 2. Rev.Fr.Britto - Vice President 3. Mr.Madhu Ramnath - Vice President 4. Mrs.Girija Viraraghavan - Secretary 5. Mrs.Pippa Mukherjee - Joint Secretary 6. Mr.N.Natarajan - Treasurer 7. M.S.Viraraghavan - Executive Committee Member 8. Mr.Rajagopal Durai Raja - Executive Committee Member 9. Vijay Kumar JOhnson - Executive Committee Member 10. Mr.Ramachandran - Executive Committee Member 11. Mrs.Rebecca Chackko - Executive Committee Member 12. Ms.Zareen Babu - Executive Committee Member Co opted members 13.Mr.J.Nath 14.Mr.Mark Anthropus A Upper Palni Hills Activities 1.Urban expansion and pollution of sholas There has been a relentless attack on natural resources at Kodaikanal by ever increasing number of tourists. We have done a study that reveals that many unlicnesed premises are now operating under the cover of "guest houses" thus the pollution load in to water bodies ; streams and forests are constantly increasing. A discussion was held with Forest Department to limit amount of plastic at the entrance to the Laws Ghat Road, but due to transfer of the concened officials the idea lost momentum. It is still a good practice to put in to force to make sure all the vehicles and passengers entering Kodaikanal are educated to bring no plastic to the hills. This can also be effected jointly as the Fr.Matthew Environment Centre is located close to the Forest Check Post. Energy use : There has been also an increasing energy use that has resulted in two new fuel outlets being opened at the Laws Ghat Road. This however is unsustainable as world fossil fuel output is running on a plateau and will decline soon. After all there may not be enough fuel to pollute the air of Kodaikanal and we may be in for a period of reduced travel in the coming years. 2.Water pollution The pollution of lake goes in unabated with the residents of Palani town suffering silently. The water testing program has been halted as there seems to be no effort on officials to even make statements in press about the extent of the pollution at the lake. We suspect that the number of leachpit toilets eutrophying the lake have increased in numbers to about 2000. The ecological solution of dry composting toilets have unfortunately no takers so far. But if the subsidies on nitorgen fertilliser are reduced or eliminated we may see a gradual focus to gather nutrients to fertilise fields rather than pollute lake waters. Theere is also no collection of the dung of joy riding ponies with local body dumping it all in to the garbage dump to emit methane in to atmosphere. (one of the most damaging green house gases) 3.Grassland and Shola Restoration The project undertaken with support from ATREE CEPF has identified 40 species of grasses that are native to the Upper Palni Hills grasslands. As part of the program three reserarchers assisted by Mr.Madhu Ramnath have set up a grassland nursery as well as documentated the extent of invasives intrusion in to sholas and grasslands. The work of propagting and making an index of the specie collection as well as publication of a checklist of grasses will be carried out soon. 4.Shola tree nurseries Kodaikanal ---------- The shola species conservation nurseries have been reduced to two numbers due to poor demand for shola trees from urban settlers. The nurseries at Kodaikanal office has distributed about 4000 seedlings and pallangi has distributed another 2500 seedlings. Pallangi -------- The Pallangi nursery serves as germination centre for the shola tree seeds that are collected in higher altitudes. After germination these are transferred to the polybags at Kodaikanal nursery. The demand around the nursery is for quality grafts of temperate fruits. This year we raised only peach but were unable to do the grafting for want of suitable personnel and scion materials. The nursery distributed about 2500 fruit trees to growers in the area. Addukkam -------- The nursery was started this year with the objective of supplying tree seedlings for land owners in the Adukkam periyakulam road. Unfortunately though we have a diverse collection with 20 species suitable for shade for coffee and timber trees, only 1200 tree seedlings were distributed to farmers in the area. This is due to severe landslides that have restricted access to the nursery site. We also propose to develop an apiary at the site in view of natual occuring colonies of the red and black ecotype of the Apis cerana indica bees. Human Animal conflict --------------------- There is perpetual presence of gaur in the vicinity of human settlements at Upper Palnis. This has so far not caused any serious trouble for the humans but crop loss is not an issue at Kodaikanal. Where as in the hills villages of pallangi Mannavannur Kavunji and Poondi there are many instances of gaur casing heavy damage to the field crops like potato ; carrot and beans. With prices of all temeprate vegetables on the riser the farmers may chose to take things in to their own hands, which may lead to a serious conflict of interests with conservation. Coffee growing areas in the middle altitudes have a more serious problem as the area of forests and wildeness is less for wildlife to take refuge. Also there is an attempt to fence farms with barbed wire that merely make it convenient for the wild life to enter areas not fenced as there is no fencing to keep them in the forests. The role of non palatable invasive weeds occupying forest floor is a major cause of migration of wild life forms in to farm and estates where palatable grasses and banana provide good forage opputunities. Removal of invasives and enrichment planting of forest floor with food webspecies may alleviate some of the present conflict situations. B.Middle Hills Tree nurseries The middle hill nurseries suffered water shortage during April May 2010 and were all closed for a period of 3 months till the water supply position improved in August 2010. Growing shade tree species that are rare and facilitation of growing the same in coffee gardens is a priority for the nurseries at Periyur. There is also scope for growing quality coffee seedlings for supply to small farmers. SVK Kombai ---------- The centre serves to seedlings needs of the tribal settlers at Siruvattukadu; Puliankasam. Tribal farmers lease their lands for plains men who cultivate Acid Lime for a few years and abandon the garden once Die Back sets in is a pattern observed over the last decade. We are trying to convince tribal farmers to keep the land and bring in Non Timber Forest Yielding crops like Soap Nut; Soap Pod and Shenbaga for flowers. The nursery is supported by donations and volunteers from the Kodaikanal International School, who have taken many trips to the centre as part of their social outresch program. The nursery has a growing stock of 2500 plants which will be improved in the coming year with water position improving. Periyur ------- This nursery was also affected by drought was closed temporarily and reopened after rains during August 2010 only. It stocks coffee seedlings and shade trees that are not easily grown elsewhere. Last year it managed to grow and facilitate planting of 800 seedlings of Eleaocarpus recurvatus and 1000 seedlings of Bischofia javanica in the coffee farms around periyur. The nursery worker is also a part time beekeper who maintains about 20 colonies of bees in nearby tribal settlemen. C.Plains tree growing centres The plains tree growihgn entres of Dindigul (Reddiapatti) ; Fr.matthew Environment centre ; Kudhirayar and Viruveedu all received insufficient rainfall during the N E Monsoon of 2009-2010 , thus the number of seedling raised have been only about 50 percent of the normal capacity of these nurseries. Further there has been a Free Seedlings Districution by various agencies of the governement affecting offtake from these centres. The way out of the situation is to grow only choice varieties that are not easily propagated and available with government programs. These seeds for these choice timbers, orgnamentals and flowering shrubs are being sources form various forest gardens at Palni Hills. 1.Fr.Matthew Environment centre ------------------------------- The centre has been supplying tree seedlings to farmers for the past two decades. This also serves as meeting point for school children tolearn forest ecology. The centre manager Mr.Jeyaram has won the JW I scholarship and has now plans to visit forest Research Institute DehraDun for improving his forest tree knowledge base. During the past year the centre facilitate growing of 24 000 tree seedlings belonging to 40 species of native plants. The part time beekeeper there maintains 10 colonies of A c I at the Manjalar watershed in coconut groves. She also makes beeswax candles which are finding good markets at Kodaikanal The seed collection work here is taking steps to incease the collection range and provenances. This can be upgraded to become the Tree Seed Centre for the NGO sector with investments in infrastructure for seed processing storage and handling. The centre has access to over 90 spoecie of forest seed provnenances due oits proximity to forests on the Laws Ghat road. 2.Kudhirayar tree growing centre -------------------------------- The tree growing centre has managed to grow and facilitate planting of neem and pongamia as part of the non edible oil seeds for Biodiesel program. There is an oil expeller installed and trials have been conducted using neem, jatropha and pongamia seeds. The results show a low return of net energy and the viability of the process to make transport fuel seems to be on the negative side. Due to the remote site and small community of farmers the offtake of seedlings from the centre has dropped to about 9500 only per year. The future plan is to make the centre an educational one for students from Udumalpet and Coimbatore on forest ecology. 3.Viruveedu tree growing centre ------------------------------- The centre has been affected by severe water shortage and we had to drill a borewell to a depth of 230 mts to get water to sustain the centre with 34 000 seedlings. The centre facilitated growing of 14 700 seedlings last year. The centre has purchased and processed 1750 kilos of honey from honey hunters and has sold bottles honey weighing 1185 kilograms. The beewax from the proecessing have been sent to fr.Matthew Environment Centre for moulding candles. The drought has driven away the 20 colonies of bees maintained at the vicinity of the centre where Drumstick was the manor crop. We propose to restock the same as rains have been good at the time of writign this report. 4.Oddukkam tree nursery ----------------------- The tree nursery situated at reddiapatti has clocked the best numbers and Mr,Nagamauthu has done an excellent job of facilitting growing of more than 91000 seedlings and the specie number stands at 80. These have been sourced by 217 tree growers during the past year. The seed centre has been closed due to want of infrastructure and we plan to open a new seed centre at the fr.M.Environment centre in 2011. D.Coastal forest restoration works Propagation of Native trees --------------------------- The seeds of rare native trees species have been collected and raised in nursery. The riverine, mangroves and mangrove associate trees Avicennia officinalis, Pandanus tectorius, Calophyllum inophyllum, Thespesia populnea, Barringtonia racemosa, Pongamia pinnata etc. There are 15000 nos seedlings of 18 species raised and maintained in nursery. Distribution of timber species to Farming Community --------------------------------------------------- The fast growing timber tree seedlings have been raised in nursery and distributed to coastal farmers in subsidized rate. Dalbergia sissoo and Gmelina arborea are raised in nursery and distributed as alternative to teak which is a well known timber tree. These two fast growing species can meet timber demand. Bischofia javanica, a timber tree which can withstand waterlogging in areas like Nagapattinam belt has been introduced on a trial basis. Free Seedling Distribution For Institutions ------------------------------------------- The shade and flowering trees have been raised in nursery and freely distributed to Institutions of Tharangambadi and Thirukadaiyur block. The major trees are Pongamia pinnata, Delonix regia, , Cassia fistula, Samanea saman and other flowering shrubs. Beekeeping ---------- Since 2006, Beekeeping has been introduced as alternative livelihood to coastal farming community. There have been 3 training programs conducted to farming community and 18 number of boxes established in farmer's field and maintained. At present there are ten hives that withstand coastal climates and are well maintained by farmers. The honey obtained is sufficient for their own use only. Survey ------ A survey has been conducted in Northern part of Nagapattinam. The following coastal villages are covered for survey Thirumullaivasal, Koolaiyar, Vazhuthalaikudi, Madavamedu and Poompughar. The statuses of mangrove and marine ecosystem, life style and livelihood of fisherman and farming community have been documented. L Field biology studies Two students from St.Olaf college Minnesota stayed at Kodaikanal and did their field studies covering Organic agriculture and Water resources of Palni Hills. M.Felowships : Our Fr.Matthew Environment Centre , Manager Mr.Jeyaram has been awarded the Joke Waller Hunter Scholarship for Environment for the year 2009-2010 N.Conclusions : The need of the hour is to make projects sustainable with a produce that is wanted locally. We need to diversify in to shrubs; climbers and other forestry based produce like charcoal. The future belongs to local enterprises and we need to build capacity for staff for changing course from donor based projects. At the time of preparation of the report, the palni Hills received an abundant precipitation and most of the nursery water sources are recharged. We hope to improve on the performance in the coming year with abundant water resources. We thank the personnel for managing different project activities and centres during the past year. Our sincere thanks for the Forest Departments of Dindigul and Kodaikanal for their support to the Councils' tree growing efforts. We thank the following donors for their assistance for projects during the last year 1..Both Ends , Netherlands 2 ATREE CEPF ,Bangalore 3. CORDAID ,Netherlands 4..Wetlands International, Amsterdam,Netherlands 5 St.Olaf College, USA 6. Forgotten Children , USA Kodaikanal R.Kannan 10-12-2010 President