Children light a bonfire to beat the cold weather on Race Course Road in Madikeri on Thursday. DH Photo / Rangaswamy
Chilling cold air blowing across Kodagu district pushed temperatures way down to 10 degree Celsius in Madikeri on Thursday.
The cloudy weather experienced in the past three days ended up increasing the chill factor and sent daytime temperature down to 10-degree Celsius.
With the temperature falling so low, Kodagu is freezing at dawn and dusk. Residents are protecting themselves from the biting cold by lighting up fires in the hearth and wearing warm woollen clothing.
Elderly people preferred to stay indoors. Due to the harsh weather, the Raja Seat now witnesses a thin attendance of people on morning walks.
The number of tourists visiting Madikeri during the winter season also dipped. Tourist agencies have attributed the fall in the number of tourists to fear of natural calamities.
There is no respite from the frosty weather for those residing in the hilly ranges of Mandalpatti, Tadiyandamol, Talacauvery and Brahmagiri.
Indresh, a senior citizen recollected that harsher weather was experienced a decade ago in the district.
“The cold weather was coupled with mist which remained for the most part of the day,’ he recounted.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Districts / by Adithya K A / DH News Service / Madikeri – December 20th, 2018
Legislators at a meeting on the implementation of the Kasturirangan report recommendations on the conservation of the Western Ghats.
MLA K G Bopaiah said that habitation area should be dropped from the purview of the ecologically sensitive area (ESA) while implementing the recommendations of the Kasturirangan panel on the conservation of the Western Ghats.
There is time till December 2 to file objections to the draft notification issued by the Ministry of Forest and Environment on the implementation of Kasturirangan recommendations, he added.
Speaking at a meeting organised to discuss on Kasturirangan report on Monday, he said the first draft notification on the recommendations was issued in 2014. The fourth draft notification was issued in the month of October.
Following a stiff opposition from the people living in the Western Ghats area, the Green bench had ordered to collect public opinion in the matter. The people from Kodagu should file objections to the report to ensure that the recommendations are not implemented, he added.
He said that the recommendations are harmful to the farmers as well. If more number of objections are submitted, it will benefit the people of Kodagu district, he said.
He appealed to the gram panchayats, taluk panchayats and zilla panchayats to file objections based on the resolution passed against the implementation of recommendations of Kasturirangan report.
Varadi Anushtana Virodhi Samithi office bearer Nanda Subbaiah said, “The Kerala government had made an on-the-spot verification of the villages falling within the ecologically sensitive areas (ESA) and kept agricultural land, plantations, and habitations out of the purview of the ESA.”
MLA M P Appachu Ranjan, MLC Sunil Subramani and others were present in the meeting.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> States> Districts / by Adithya KA, DH News Service / November 26th, 2018
Kodava Samaja, Mysuru, will be celebrating Huthri, the harvest festival of Kodagu, tomorrow (Nov.23) at Sree Cauvery College Grounds in Kuvempunagar from 5.30 pm onwards.
On the occasion, traditional Kodava dances will be presented. ‘Nere kattuva’ ritual will be held at 7.30 pm; reaping new paddy crop (Kadiru) at 8.30 pm; distribution of thambutt prasada at 9.30 pm.
As in the previous years, Puthari Eedu was held from Nov.18 daily at 6 pm at the Samaja premises in Vijayanagar where traditional Kodava dances are practiced. The Eedu programme, sponsored by various Kodava Sanghas, will be held this evening also.
While Ketolira Ravi Belliappa trains the young and old male dancers in Bolkaat, Kolaat, Kathiyaat and Pareyakali, Kullachanda Vinutha Kesari imparts training to girls in Ummathaat.
Thanks to Kodava Samaja, Mysuru, for strengthening the community bonding and preserving the Kodava culture and tradition by holding such events and encouraging the youngsters.
The main event in traditional Kodava attires will be held during Huthri celebrations tomorrow evening at Cauvery Institutions premises.
Gowda Samaja
Huthri festival will also be celebrated under the auspices of Kodagu Gowda Samaja, Mysuru, at its premises in Vijayanagar 2nd Stage here tomorrow from 7 pm onwards. ‘Nere kattuva’ ritual will be held at 7.45 pm; reaping of new paddy crop (Kadiru) at 8.45 pm. There will be distribution of Kadiru also, according to a press release from Samaja Hon. Secretary K.S. Ganapathy.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / November 22nd, 2018
Apolimanthera and Dominic, in front of their house at Hattihole, Kodagu.
The landscape bears the wounds of the devastating deluge; families, worried about the future, are wary of returning home.
A river, brown with muddy water, flows its usual course on a sunny afternoon, deceptive of the ravage it had caused two months ago when heavy rains and floods devastated Kodagu. On one side of the river’s bank sit two houses – both with different stories of the same tragedy.
One bears large cracks on the walls. Dominic, 63, and his wife Apolimanthera, 59, had to flee from their home in Hattihole, Kodagu district, for a week, after the water level rose on August 17, inundating their home that is below road level. “The water was up to our waist on the road, and we were asked to rush out. We stayed at the relief centre set up in the church for around a week and returned to the devastation after the levels receded,” Mr. Dominic said.
Pointing to a large tree that was swept away by the force of water, which now stands as testimony to the extent of the disaster in the middle of the river, visible from their backyard, he lamented that the river water was now unfit to be used for anything.
Next door, within the same compound is the house of Francis Montheiro, 47, now locked up. A social worker, Mr. Montheiro, known as Appu, was an active volunteer during the floods too. Mr. Dominic last saw him on the morning of August 17, after which he went missing. His body was found in the river nine days later.
Mr. Montheiro’s wife Flaviya Jyothi, 44, a nurse at a private hospital in Madikeri, and two children have shifted to the capital. “My husband used to pick up and drop me halfway. But now, with my shift timings, I decided to shift to Madikeri to make travel easier,” she said. Their sons are in Class 10. Mr. Monteiro was engaged in small businesses dealing with pepper and coffee and drove a taxi.
The house they have left behind, Ms. Jyothi said, is the only asset the family has. “We received ₹5 lakh in compensation. But how do you make up for the loss of a person? Appu is now only a name in our memories,” she added.
Francis D’Souza runs a small hotel on the main road that leads to Hattihole. Having lost his house in the flood, he now lives in a house on rent. “Not just our house, when we left for the relief centre, someone stole what was left in the house and the hotel – jewellery, homemade wine, and bottles of honey (which he sells) and sacks of pepper,” he said.
Three months after the floods, signs of devastation are still everywhere. In Thantipala, the van of a local resident lies almost fully buried in sand left behind by flood water. Mounds of flood residue comprising mud and broken trees line up either side of the road paved out.
In Udaygiri, the remains of the sole house that survived a massive landslip hinges on the edge, as locals continue to stream in, standing cautiously on the other side and trying to remember the road that once led straight to that house. Raghavendra Shetty, a school teacher, said one person had died here, and at least five houses had turned into rubble.
Normalcy is still a far cry for these families.
Says Ms. Apolimanthera, with large coffee estates being wiped out, work as an estate worker was hard to come by. “I used to earn around ₹1,800 a week. Now I am lucky if I find enough work to pay me ₹300 a day. In our 50 years here, we have never been faced with anything like this,” she said.
Apart from dealing with coming to terms with the present, many are worried about the future.
Charan Panthale drives down to his field in Devasthur, where his house stands half destroyed. A large tree trunk, brought in by the gush of water that crashed into his house, still stands. Sacks of husk lie outside the house on a bed of mud that was the land it was harvested in.
“We have lost one and a half acres. There is nothing we can do about it at present. It will take a long time,” he said. The family is temporarily living with relatives.
840 beneficiaries in the first phase
The Kodagu district administration has identified 840 beneficiaries who will be given houses in the first phase. The government will approve one of the five model houses being built by different agencies and companies.
Sreevidya P.I., Deputy Commissioner, Kodagu, told The Hindu that the report had been submitted to the government and awaited approval. The beneficiaries were chosen based on applications and cross verification with agencies such as the gram panchayats.
“There are five houses and three have been completed. The Chief Minister has also seen these. New technology has been tried out in these. We will see which of these is suitable for the hilly terrain and landslips and accordingly, one model will be selected,” she said.
The DC also said that some people had expressed willingness to build houses on their own, for which the government would provide some compensation, and they too could utilise the technology implemented in the model houses. The unit cost is yet to be decided, she said.
As for crop losses, a hectare-wise compensation based on the type of plantation – coffee, paddy, pepper, etc –would be initiated , Ms. Sreevidya said, adding that NDRF guidelines were followed for the surveys, and with Union government funds involved, they would have to wait for government approval.
(This is the first of a two-part series.)
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by K.C. Deepika / November 17th, 2018
The seventh day of Dasara Yuva Sambhrama held at the Open Air Theatre in Manasagangothri here last evening saw the participating students sending out messages on Water Conservation, Save Kodagu and Swachh Bharat through their songs and dance.
While the students of Government Arts, Commerce and PG College, Hassan, gave a message on conservation of environment and water, the students of Virajpet First Grade College presented a dance drama for the song ‘Janana-Janana Yarado Papa, Marana-Marana Yarado Shaapa.’ The students later highlighted the devastation caused by floods and landslides in Kodagu and gave messages on the importance of forest conservation.
The students of Jnanadeepa First Grade College danced to the song ‘Mysuru Dasara Yeshtondu Sundara’ which received appreciation from the audience. JSS Women’s College students of Chamarajanagar, all dressed in green, walked up on the stage and highlighted the importance of conserving, protecting and planting trees besides sending out messages on conservation of forests.
Messages such as women empowerment by students of Devaraja Girls Government PU College, Indira Gandhi Government FGC, Sagar, on Kannada and Culture, Madikeri’s Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa College students on Freedom Struggle and Mangaluru’s Dr. P. Dayananda Pai-Dr. P. Satish Pai FGC students sent out a message on Swachh Bharat through their dance.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / October 07th, 2018
Foraging has long been a way of life for wild-food loving Coorg
Coffee-picking at an estate in Coorg. Photo: iStock
René Redzepi, the foraging genius who stormed the culinary world with his New Nordic cuisine, would have a lot to smile about in Coorg. Here foraged ingredients don’t just put in an occasional appearance but are the main attraction, making Coorg an interesting region for true-blue wild-food pioneers. The eastern declivities of the Western Ghats that make up Coorg are extensively clothed in forests. Shade-grown coffee plantations offer the ideal habitat for rare flora and fauna to thrive as do sacred groves or devakads, designated as protected forests under the Indian Forest Act.
Against this backdrop is a staggering bounty of indigenous greens, weeds, flowers, fruits, berries, nuts, mushrooms and shoots, many of which play a starring role in the local cuisine.
Gazetteer Of Coorg, first published in 1870, devotes reams to Coorg’s jungle bounty: wild pepper, wild ginger, wild cloves, bitter local oranges known as kaipuli, rose apples, jungle mangoes, bastard sago—esteemed for its toddy—hog plums, several kinds of bamboo shoots, and an alphabetical list of over 60 ferns.
Locals keep their eyes open to what’s growing around them, constantly sizing up culinary possibilities. Freshly plucked cape gooseberries go into jams, a tangle of greens are added to stir-fries, and fronds of tender bracken ferns get pickled and ground into chutneys.
Kaveri Ponnapa, author of The Vanishing Kodavas, says in one of her earlier articles on Coorg: “Most women of my mother-in- law’s generation who lived on coffee plantations never set out on a stroll without the equivalent of the Russian avoska, the ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’ mesh bag—you never knew what surprise the season would throw your way.”
Several ingredients are unique to these parts. Like kachampuli, the dark vinegar made from the concentrated juice of the garcinia gummi-gutta fruit (called panapuli locally), which adds a sour kick to pork and fish dishes. And the famous Coorg honey, made from wild roses and forest blooms, which locals drizzle on akki ottis or rice rotis, and eat with ghee for breakfast.
Naveen Alvares, executive chef at Evolve Back Chikkana Halli estate, attributes this love of indigenous ingredients to Coorg’s unique geography and culture. “Kodavas, who make up most of the population, are ancestor worshippers and eat what is available off the land. Most have a plantation background or a sacred forest, so the connect with the land is very strong,” he says.
Walking through the resort’s lush plantations, among the oldest in Coorg, I see the coffee-forest symbiosis in full bloom. Coffee bushes sit beneath a canopy of silver oak trees that support festoons of black pepper. Ginger and turmeric, planted for intercropping, dot the forest floor. Jackfruits hang from trees. You can hear red-whiskered bulbuls chirruping.
Several exotic edibles are to be seen, many of them unconventional in the Indian context. As I stop to admire the bizarre artistry of a passionflower, Alvares smiles, “This is what makes Coorg special. It’s wildness.”
Dinner is a knockout pandi curry. The dark colour and complexity of this most iconic of Coorg pork dishes derives from dark roasted spices and kachampuli, a souring agent Alvares clearly loves.
I drive down from Siddapur to Madikeri the next day. The hour-long journey is jawdroppingly scenic. Acre after acre of coffee plantation presents itself, occasionally punctuated by the whoosh of a waterfall or the brilliant blue of a kingfisher.
A treasure trove of mushroom diversity, the Western Ghats are home to 750 species. Edible fungi known as kummu grow wild on Coorg’s hills and are highly prized for their exotic flavour. Vancouver-based blogger Shalini Nanda Nagappa mentions several varieties in her blog, A Cookery Year In Coorg—“feathery, delicate nucchi kummu and kokkalé kummu, succulent aal kummu, the giant nethalé kummu,..and the decidedly meaty pandi kummu.”
Only locals who carry with them an intimate knowledge of when, where and how to harvest the edible varieties can procure them, Nagappa points out. As a result, these treasures rarely make it to local markets and remain confined to the kitchens of plantation owners and local villagers.
‘Pandi curry’ at the Evovle Back resort.
The pleasures of kummu elude me during this visit, but I do feast on other Kodagu treats at Coorg Cuisine, a popular local restaurant in Madikeri. My lunch companion is M.B. Kumar, a Madikeri-based Kodava agriculturist and plantation owner. The wild mango curry, made with small jungle mangoes or kaad maange and black jaggery, is by turns sweet, sour and peppery. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. Chewing on a mango kernel, it is love at first bite.
The smoked pork, known as chillkana pandi, packs a meaty savouriness, while the freshness of the forest pervades a bowl of lightly fermented and sauteed baimbale or bamboo shoots. There’s pandi curry, of course, intensely flavoured and addictive as always. And akki ottis and kadumbuttus (rice balls) to mop it all up with.
To put pork’s near sacred place in Coorg’s cuisine in context, Kumar narrates a colourful legend. When Parvati expressed a desire to see Arjuna’s back (the great warrior never showed his back—a sign of weakness—during war), Shiva disguised himself as a hunter and shot a wild boar that Arjuna’s arrow had pierced. An altercation followed. As Arjuna fell over his opponent, his back was revealed, granting Parvati’s wish. A shower of flowers fell from the heavens and the pork was distributed as prasad to the hunting party.
The yarn illustrates the extent to which Coorg’s geographical seclusion has shaped its unique cuisine. “While we Coorgs (Kodavas) treat pork as prasad and offer it to our ancestors during rituals, it would be considered blasphemous to go anywhere near pork in neighbouring Mysuru,” Kumar laughs.
As we eat, Kumar draws my attention to the age-old tradition of foraging for monsoon greens, known as thoppus in Coorg’s interiors. The repertoire of seasonal weeds is dazzling. Thatte thoppu has a slightly bitter taste but tastes delicious with akki ottis and a little ghee; kakke thoppu with its purplish-black fruit is effective in deworming; therme thoppu or bracken ferns taste good simply sautéed with onions and pair divinely with eggs.
During mid-monsoon, on the 18th day of a period known as kakkada, Kodavas pick the leaves of a wild plant called madd thoppu and extract its juice to make a payasam.
The bustling Friday market in Madikeri is chock-full of these supergreens and more. Kembe (colocasia leaves) and kaipuli are up for grabs as are spices and meat. Walking around, it becomes abundantly clear that Kodavas are not just master harvesters, they’re also skilled at altering foodstuffs for preservation by yeast and bacteria. A huge assortment of jams and pickles made from the spoils of the land lines the local stores. Everything is home-made and unbranded.
On my last morning in Coorg, I drop in at Coorg’s Progressive Beekeepers Co-op Society store and pick up a bottle of wild honey to take back home. As I make my way to Bengaluru to catch my flight, the resinous, sour-sweet taste of kaad maange lingers on my tongue.
Wild foods, which grow in their natural habitat without fertilizers or pesticides, don’t deplete the earth’s resources. And they taste incredible. What if we, like Kodavas, thought of the forest as our pantry? Let’s tap into our vast underutilized permacultures and support the foragers who gather these ingredients. Let’s showcase our native treasures at the finest restaurants through dishes that startle with their newness and intensity.
Let’s go wild.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint / Home> Leisure / by Sona Bahadur / October 21st, 2018
A coffee plantation in Kodagu, in the shade of silver oak trees. | Photo Credit: MAIL
Using silver oaks is detrimental for robusta
The exotic silver oak may be coffee growers’ preferred shade tree now, but research shows that it affects carbon sequestration and tree diversity in Kodagu’s agroforest systems.
Kodagu’s coffee farms were created when farmers cleared forest undergrowth and started growing coffee under the shade of giant evergreen trees. This ‘native shade’ coffee is still prevalent in the district, but evergreen trees are quickly losing out to the fast-growing silver oak. Farmers do not need permission from forest officials to lop or cut silver oak; this also contributes to its popularity. However, old forest trees make up a huge portion of carbon stocks here, and carbon stocks matter because the higher the carbon contained in vegetation, the more it helps with mitigating climate change.
Carbon stocks
To find out if carbon stocks change when silver oak takes over, a team including scientist Manjunatha Munishamappa from Bengaluru’s Environmental Management and Policy Research Institute studied a total of 49 native and exotic agroforestry systems – where either robusta (which needs more sunlight) or arabica coffee varieties are grown – near 18 forest patches that fall under both moderate and high rainfall zones. In each plot (all spread across 22 locations along the Cauvery river in Kodagu), the researchers quantified shade tree species diversity and the amount of organic carbon sequestered in the trees by measuring wood, root, litter and soil biomass. Across all plots, the researchers identified a total of 86 native tree species; and the total carbon stocks rose with increasing tree diversity.
Native trees in coffee estates and forests displayed high and comparable carbon stocks (approximately 193 and 222 megagrams (Mg) of carbon (C) per hectare respectively) as well as tree diversity (around 45 tree species). However, the introduction of silver oak negatively impacted both carbon stock and diversity. Predictably, robusta coffee estates with silver oaks had significantly lower tree diversity (nine species) and lower carbon stocks (up to an average of 65 MgC per hectare) than all other land-use systems in both precipitation zones.
Current trends
Hence, the current trend of replacing native shade trees in coffee estates with silver oaks is detrimental for carbon storage and tree diversity, especially in robusta farms. Current policies do play a role in this change, because the exotics can be cut for timber without prior permission.
“We have submitted two reports to the Karnataka government on these findings, we hope some policy changes will be incorporated,” he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Science / by Aathira Perinchery/ October 20th, 2018
Mullayanagiri [mool-ya-na-gi-ree] is a mouthful not only for those people who don’t speak either of the four languages of the five Southern Indian states, but even for most Indians who are unfamiliar with the region.
At an elevation of 1,930 meters, Mullayanagiri is the highest mountain peak in the Southwestern Indian state of Karnataka, in the Chikmagalur district. The peak forms a part of the Baba Budan range of mountains, which are part of the greater Western Ghats. The names of Chikmagalur and Baba Budan will resonate with most of the Indian populace for its association with coffee and salubrious weather.
Chikamagalur, the lesser-known, quaint hill town, became the first recorded place in India to cultivate coffee when it was introduced to hillsides from Yemen around the mid to late 1600s. As the story goes, seven beans of coffee were smuggled out of Yemen’s town of Mocha by an Indian hermit named Baba Budan.
Baba Budan then planted these in the hills of Chikmagalur. No one is sure of how much and how well these foreign beans grew in the time following, but coffee cultivation was seriously undertaken in the 18th Century by British entrepreneurs who turned forests in Southern India into commercial coffee plantations.
In fact, coffee was cultivated long before tea, mainly in Northern India. This is a relatively unknown fact, as India is perceived to be a tea-drinking nation and does have excellent tea gardens in Darjeeling, Bengal and Assam.
“Coffee was an established commercial crop by the turn of the 19th Century and was exported to Europe via London,” said Anil Bhandari, president of the India Coffee Trust, a nonprofit organization that promotes coffee consumption. “By the early 1940s, Indian Arabica coffee — or Mysore coffee, as it was known then — had established itself in the European market and had a branding all of its own. However… WWII and the loss of the European market during that phase caused the unique branding of Mysore coffee to disappear from buyers’ consciousness.”
Coffee grown in the forests of India, the world’s sixth largest producer of coffee, is cultivated under thick canopies in the Western Ghats — a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots.
In the 2016-17 season, India produced 5.5 million bags of coffee. A majority of the country’s coffee is grown in the three southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which was a part of Andhra Pradesh until recently.
Nearly 65 percent of the total production comes from Karnataka, while Tamil Nadu contributes approximately 15 percent, and Kerala makes up around 20 percent. It has been estimated that there are more than 210,000 coffee producers in India, the majority of whom are smallhoder farmers with plots around two hectares.
As in most producing countries, India processes coffee by the washed (or wet) method as well as the natural (or dry) method.
India is renowned for its unique shade-grown coffee. The two commercially important species of coffee, Arabica and Robusta, are grown under heavy shade that is believed to contribute to the flavor profile of the coffee to the coffee, along with other influences such as the monsoons, spices that grow around coffee, and the various fauna that thrive alongside it.
Within this bio-diverse growing environment, the mixture of vegetation prevents soil erosion and fallen leaves decompose to become rich humus, thereby retaining the forest ecosystem. The Indian Rainforest-grown Arabica is unique in its properties and sought after for its flavor and characteristics, as these are grown at higher altitudes.
Increasingly, the industry is shifting towards sustainable farming practices, and more estates have become certified by Rainforest Alliance-UTZ and Fairtrade. Organic coffee is also of increasing interest, especially for coffee grown on tribal land, which represents about 42 percent of the coffee area in India. In these areas, coffee is managed in traditional ways, often organically.
Most of India’s coffee exports go to Europe, Japan and the Middle East, while many global consumers remain unaware of the complexities and quality that fine Indian coffee from Southern estates can offer. The name “Coffee of India” is only used as an indication of origin at the export level, when packages are shipped from India to the country of destination.
“Indian coffee, particularly the Robusta parchment and cherry, continue to see good demand from Italian buyers,” said Ramesh Rajah, the president of the Coffee Exporters Association of India. “Of concern is the falling Arabica production due to extremely low prices prevailing in the international market, as well as the recent flood damage, which is still being assessed.”
Rigid control of quality and grade designations by India Coffee Board, an agency of the Government of India, ensures the export of only the finest and the most aromatic of India’s hand-picked coffee beans.
Encouragement for the local coffee industry comes not only from the Coffee Board of India, but from nonprofit bodies such as the India Coffee Trust that are working towards fortifying and intensifying these efforts.
“The India Coffee Trust is the result of a general consensus among the stakeholders of the Indian coffee industry to create a nonprofit organization that discusses and promotes Indian coffee,” Bhandari said. “Assisting the Trust with the objective of creating a wider global outreach and visibility of India’s fine Shade Grown coffees is the Indian Coffee Collective. Together, our primary mandate is to promote India’s shade-grown coffees and it’s long standing history with the humble brown bean.”
With a goal of raising awareness around preserving and promoting the values of coffee culture in India, the India International Coffee Festival — jointly organized by the India Coffee Trust and Coffee Board of India — took place in Bengaluru in January 2018. The four-day attracted more than 5,000 local, national, and international visitors.
The next festival is scheduled for 2020. Time will tell where Indian coffee will be by then.
source: http://www.dailycoffeenews.com / Daily Coffee News (by Roast Magazine) / by Anamika Ghosh / October 02nd, 2018
“A forestdepleted Kodagu basin will have reduced capacity to capture and store rainwater.” It is a picture of destruction in Hattihole near Somwarpet, Kodagu, after the floods. | Photo Credit: Sampath Kumar G.P.
Protecting the Kodagu watershed is essential to ensure the water security of three States
We require water for everything: drinking, growing crops, producing electricity and industrial production. With the world population projected to grow to about 10 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations, and with climate change discernible, both the quantity and quality of freshwater will become critical, affecting health, food security, and economic well-being. A 2015 UN report, Water for a Sustainable World, pointed out that the gap between the availability of water and our need for water is only going to increase.
Projects in the river basin
The growing demand on freshwater resources demonstrates the need for sustainable management of water. In this context, projects that are being contemplated, such as the laying of multiple railway tracks in the critical Cauvery river basin in Kodagu district, Karnataka, are not only economically unviable but also ecologically damaging. Mega projects pose a clear threat to the long-term water security of the three States that depend on the Cauvery (Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu), and exacerbate the threat posed by seasonal droughts and floods.
The Cauvery basin drains an area of about 81,000 sq. km. Originating in Talakaveri, Kodagu, the river irrigates agricultural fields, generates electricity, and provides drinking water to downstream communities across south India. The Cauvery and its tributaries contribute the bulk of water to the Krishna Raja Sagara dam near Mysuru, the primary water source for Bengaluru. However, increasing development pressure from the transportation and construction sectors poses a severe threat to the forests, riverbeds, wildlife and agricultural lands. This March, for the first time in decades, towns such as Virajpet in Kodagu faced a severe shortage of drinking water. The continuing loss of forest cover and illegal sand mining from river beds endanger water and food security for all the downstream communities in the Cauvery basin.
The three proposed railway plans have major implications. One, all the tracks will cut through large swaths of agricultural farms and fields as well as Protected and Reserve Forests that are spread across Kodagu and Mangaluru districts of Karnataka, and Wayanad and Kannur districts of Kerala. Along this sparsely populated area, transportation needs can be met by simply improving existing roads at a fraction of the monetary and ecological cost of the proposed railways. In fact, in its feasibility report of the Mysuru-Thalassery line, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation stated that the project would not be beneficial to the State. In response to protests by the people of Kodagu in February, the plan to build the Mysuru-Thalassery line was scrapped in March. However, if history is any guide, plans to build the tracks will reemerge in time.
Two, they will affect the Western Ghats, one of the most biodiverse regions on earth. Kodagu has about 45% forest cover and about 30% agroforestry systems (coffee plantations and paddy fields). Between 2013 and 2015, a high-tension power line linking Mysuru and Kozhikode resulted in the loss of about 50,000 trees in Kodagu alone. If the proposed railway lines are constructed, they would conservatively result in tree loss that is 10 times more than this. Forests help capture rainfall, reduce run-off and soil erosion, recharge groundwater aquifers, mitigate flooding, support local communities, and provide refuge for native flora and fauna. Raised railway tracks will also impede wildlife and could result in the deaths of endangered animals such as elephants. Most importantly, a forest-depleted Kodagu basin will have reduced capacity to capture and store rainwater. Even without the railway tracks, a satellite-based report titled India State of Forests 2017 noted that Kodagu lost 102 sq. km. of tree cover in just two years.
Variable monsoon
The Kodagu basin receives heavy rainfall, mainly during the southwest monsoon (June-September), that feeds the Cauvery. However, studies by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and others, published in the journal Nature, have found evidence for increasingly variable monsoon rainfall. Thus, we can expect to experience more extreme floods as well as droughts in the future. These are scenarios that make preserving forest cover more vital in order to mitigate the collateral effects of these extreme events.
During this year’s southwest monsoon season, Kodagu received twice as much annual rainfall as usual and with greater intensity. This resulted in landslides and floods. A recent study of nearly 5,000 landslides around the world, published in Earth and Space Science News (Eos), has revealed that activities like construction, illegal mining and hill cutting are increasingly responsible for the uptick in fatal landslides, particularly in Asia. It will be hard to claim that the uncontrolled development and forest clearance in the steep slopes of the Western Ghats in recent years has not been a factor in the tragedy that just unfolded in Kodagu, and in the coastal districts of Kerala. With 100-year storms likely to become more frequent as the climate becomes warmer, business as usual is sure to increasingly endanger lives and property.
Erratic monsoon rains can cause flooding, droughts, water and food security. Preserving existing forests in the watershed provides an effective ‘insurance policy’ for reducing the effect of floods and droughts while recharging groundwater across the Cauvery river basin. Nature has reported that diminished access to water resources increases the risk of social unrest, political instability, intensified refugee flows and armed conflicts, even within borders. The variable nature of monsoons makes India one of the most vulnerable regions to water-related disasters associated with climate change and extreme weather events. According to a BBC report, Bengaluru is likely to run out of drinking water in the next decade. Economists should estimate the monetary and human cost of cities like Bengaluru becoming dry, and implement policies focused on achieving and maintaining sustainable water resources.
We are at the start of the UN Decade for Water, which emphasises water security for all. Everyone lives in a watershed, yet water remains a remote concept for those who consume it the most — people, industries and farmers. There are no substitutes for water as the very basis for life. Protecting the Cauvery’s source is essential for the sustained well-being of the entire basin and of the three States that the river nourishes. In fact, good water governance of the nation’s watersheds will be key to its sustainable future. We can begin by saving Cauvery’s cradle.
Bopaiah Biddanda is Professor of Water Resources at the Robert B. Annis Water Resources Institute, U.S.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Opinion> Comment / by Bopaiah Biddanda / September 24th, 2018
With donors from across the state contributing to CM’s Relief Fund, exclusively released to Kodagu district, over Rs 62 crore has been collected as on September 20.
Madikeri :
Following the natural disaster in Kodagu district, the numerous families that had lost houses and other properties were handed over Rs 3,800 – Rs 1,800 for clothing and Rs 2,000 for utensils and other household goods (per family)- under SDRF/NDRF guidelines.
Since the damage has been severe and the process of permanent rehabilitation will take some more time, the district administration including Deputy Commissioner Sreevidya P I and Kodagu District Minister Sa Ra Mahesh had proposed a request to the State government to increase the amount from meagre Rs 3,800/- per family to Rs 50,000, in a letter dated 28 August.
While the State and National Disaster Fund guidelines do not allow any changes to be made to the gratuitous funds, the state revenue department had stepped into people’s aid and had forwarded the proposal of releasing Rs 50,000/- each for the distressed families from the Karnataka Chief Minister Relief Fund-Natural Calamity 2018. The proposal, which was forwarded to CM H D Kumaraswamy was later forwarded to the Cabinet Committee for approval, which has now been sanctioned.
With donors from across the state contributing to CM’s Relief Fund, exclusively released to Kodagu district, over Rs 62 crore has been collected as on September 20. As many as 1,156 families have been directly affected by natural disaster and 186 houses have been damaged completely, 530 houses have been damaged severely and 404 houses have undergone partial damage.
While Rs 320 crore has been allotted to Karnataka under SDRF, an additional state fund of Rs 400 crore is provided to the state.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Express News Service / September 22nd, 2018
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