(IN): Big cat shadow on tea output

[Guest guest]

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100407/jsp/northeast/story_12311529.jsp

 

Big cat shadow on tea output

- Production may be hit if workers refuse to work in gardens out of fear:

PlantersA

 

STAFF REPORTER

 

*Guwahati, April 6: *The Assam tea industry has only recently come out of

long years of economic adversity to face threats from another foe: big cats.

 

It has appealed to the government to take steps to keep the big cats out of

the tea estates, which the industry claimed have seriously hampered

production.

 

“Tea estates have almost turned into a battle zone with leopards and tigers

constantly in conflict with the labour force. This is seriously hampering

work,” the chairman of the Assam Tea Planters Association, Abhijit Sharma,

told *The Telegraph *today.

 

Sharma said labourers in many gardens were scared to go out to work. The

association, the apex body of the local tea planters in the state, has

directed all estate managers to contact the forest department immediately if

a leopard or a tiger was spotted in the gardens.

 

The worst affected estates, he said, are in Jorhat, Sivasagar and Golaghat

districts.

 

Sharma said despite the association making repeated appeals to the

authorities concerned, nothing much has been done till now and the conflict

continues.

 

With the peak production season about to start, several planters in Upper

Assam are a worried lot, fearing that the leopards may became a hurdle in

achieving production targets.

 

“We spotted at least three leopards in the garden in the past few weeks. The

labourers are simply not willing to venture out. If this continues for some

more time, I don’t know what will happen,” an estate owner at Sonari in

Sivasagar district said.

 

The battle between the garden labourers and big cats in tea-rich Upper Assam

has witnessed the death of over 20 leopards in the past five years, forest

department sources said. A few persons have also died in these attacks while

several were injured. Only yesterday, a female leopard was killed at Sangsua

estate in Jorhat district after it lunged at two labourers.

 

The secretary of the Tea Association of India (TAI), J.N. Baruah, said it

was not only regular work at the estates that has been hampered by the

growing conflict between the big cats and the labourers, the management of

tea estates is having to face awkward situations too.

 

“There have been instances when forest and police personnel unnecessarily

harass the garden managers when a leopard or tiger is killed by the

labourers as to why the forest department was not informed when the animal

was sighted, why the labourers were not stopped and so on,” Baruah said.

 

There are also instances when labourers were arrested on charges of killing

leopards. Baruah said it was necessary for the forest department to hold

awareness campaigns among tea garden labourers, at least in the vulnerable

estates, not to attack these endangered animals.

 

The divisional forest officer of Sivasagar division, Utpal Bora, said the

decreasing forest cover was forcing leopards and tigers to stray into tea

estates.

 

Sivasagar, he said, has a large leopard population. “Though there is no

official count of these leopards, I firmly believe that there are more than

25 leopards in the district, surrounded by three reserve forests,” he said.

 

Bora said cages were being erected in several vulnerable areas, especially

tea estates, to capture leopards.

 

“In the past few years, we have captured at least 10 leopards and a Royal

Bengal tiger from different parts of the district,” he said.

 

--

http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui