Tripura may not have many industries, but it can claim to be a rubber-producing powerhouse. The state is second only to Kerala in rubber production and accounts for 9% of India’s rubber production. Earlier last week, the Rubber Board of India set a target of 2 lakh hectares of rubber cultivation in the Northeastern states by 2025 to increase production, with over half coming from Tripura, which has over 1.15 lakh rubber growers.
But the push for rubber is coming at a huge environmental cost, say researchers.
A study by Prasenjit Patari and Professor Sabyasachi Dasgupta, published in an article named “Impact of Monoculture Rubber Plantation on Non Human Primates and Plant Diversity in South Tripura”, published in the book “Biodiversity of our Mother Earth,” has pointed out the dangers of the push for rubber.
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Speaking to EastMojo, Researcher Prasenjit Patari, who co-authored the research article, said, “Tripura had 74,335 hectares of rubber plantation in the state, according to the rubber board, as of 2015-16. Natural Rubber (NR) cultivation in the last century contributed to a significant economic upliftment in rural Tripura. This led to a significant reduction in social problems. But it has been observed that excessive rubber plantations are adversely affecting various wildlife and plant species. Our paper showed that due to the reduction of forest cover, monkeys occasionally enter rubber plantations for food, but they do not find much food in monoculture plantation areas. As a result, they are suffering for food, their behaviour is changing and species diversity is decreasing day by day.”
The duo found that the monkey population reduces in regions with rubber plantations. And the increasing push for commercial-scale rubber plantations makes it much harder for monkeys to gather food, thereby pushing the species to the verge of extinction.
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“The number of monkeys in the rubber plantation area is much lower than in the nearby forests and they spend less time in the rubber plantation area. Nonhuman primates are of central importance to tropical biodiversity and various ecosystem functions, they are our nearest biological relatives and play a main function in the livelihoods, cultures and religions of many societies. Non-human primates help in pollination, seed dispersal and seed germination of many plants and they are important seed predators in some ecosystems. But due to the growing rubber plantations, they do not get enough food, which makes their survival difficult. Thus if any animal species becomes extinct it disrupts the natural state of the environment”, the authors of the article warned.
The authors also described the reason as to why monkeys don’t enter rubber plantations: “The research paper revealed that less shrubs and herbaceous plants grow in rubber plantation areas than in forest areas, and also, people cut and destroy the plants that grow in rubber plantation areas. The biodiversity value of shrubs and herbaceous plants in rubber plantation areas is much lower than in forest areas. Many wild animals and plants are slowly disappearing in this state due to the excessive planting of rubber for commercial benefits and if it continues to the same scale, our future generations will face the brunt,” the paper added.
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