Plantations and Environment

摘要

The Western Ghats stretches from Kanyakumari to Tapi for a length of about 1600 kms and comprises an area of 1.6 lakh Sq Km (160 Lakhs Hectares). Out of this 28 Lakh Hectares lies in Kerala Region which constitutes about 72% of the total area of Kerala of 39 lakh hectares. The total area of plantation in Kerala region is as follows.The total plantation area constitutes only 23% of the Western Ghats area of 28 lakh hectares. The allegation that the plantations occupy more than 70% of Western Ghats and are the major contributors to the destruction of Western Ghats Ecology is patentlywrong and misleading.It has now become popular and fashionable for many NGO's to criticize the plantations and all the people living in the Western Ghats Area and blame them for destruction of the forests. These NGOs get their funding from donations from people and grants from the national and international agencies and therefore to justify their existence and to show they are doing good work, they make such untrue, illogical and unreasonable statements. Plantation Sector take strong objection to such misrepresentation of facts to the public.