Rainforest Concern

India

Managing Lantana in the Western Ghats 

The negative effects of invasive plant species on biodiversity and on the well being of human societies are well known. Lantana camara, a native weed of South America, was introduced to India at the National Botanical Gardens, Calcutta in 1807 as an ornamental plant by the British and, since then, the plant has successfully invaded virtually all parts of the country. Unfortunately efforts to manage the weed have not been successful. The Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), in Bangalore, India has sought to promote the use of Lantana as a substitute for the rapidly declining bamboo resources among some of the poorest rural communities in south India. This innovative idea won the global Development Marketplace award in 2003.

Through recent support from Rainforest Concern, the use of Lantana has been extended to additional communities in south India. A number of Lantana Craft Centres have been established, specifically to train women artisans, and to help organise communities to develop their own administrative structures and formalise market linkages. Attempts are also being made to design and diversify the range of products to include handicrafts and toy making.

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The Gurukula Botanical Santuary 

In 2006, the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary (GBS) and their ‘School in the Forest’ Educational programmes, won the Whitley award, the top UK environmental prize in 2006. Due to their unrivalled knowledge of plant species cultivation they have shown that degraded complex habitats can be re-established faster through a process of ‘gardening back the biosphere’. As over 90% of the forest of the Western Ghats has been lost through poor farming practice and poorly planned development projects the GBS is seen as the hope for the region and their educational work is now urgently sought after locally, nationally and even internationally.

With the largest collection of native species in the region even governmental ministries of the Environment and the Botanical Survey of India are requesting Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary to take the lead role in training botanists and forest gardeners around the country. This will require expansion of current infrastructure to accomodate the increased number of students this will attract.

Rainforest Concern are supporting GBS in developing the sanctuary as a local model for integrated land use through the support and expansion of their Plant Conservation and Educational programme, offering a real hope for the peoples and rainforests of the Western Ghats.

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