Bhopal: Corona pandemic has rendered many a people jobless. But the forest resources in the state kept the below poverty line population busy with seasonal occupation. Co-existence of biodiversity and humans has always aided the earthlings.
Minor forest produce like Tendu leaves and Mahua employed more than 32 lakh forest-dwellers this year despite the hubbub of corona outbreak.
Madhya Pradesh forest cover yields 41% tendu leaves of the country and about 6,000 metric tones mahua on an average every year. While the nation suffered loss of employment amidst the outbreak, the season brought in opportunity to encash the treasure of the forest for the forest-dwelling community.
The Madhya Pradesh State Minor Forest Produce Federation has targeted to procure 16.29 lakh standard sacks.
The Principal Chief Conservator of Forest at MP Minor Forest Produce Federation, Anil Shrivastav, told Free Press the federation has procured 15.67 lakh sacks of tendu leaves so far and paid upto Rs 2,500 per sack. They are paying more than Rs 400-450 crore among the tendu leaf pickers, he said.
The government increased the minimum support price of mahua by Rs 5 and the mahua pickers were paid Rs 35 per quintal for mahua flowers. Mahua pickers sold about 75,000-1 lakh of their yield at the rate between Rs 35-42 per quintal.
Shrivastav said that the federation has bought about 1,500 quintals of Mahua from the villagers and forest-dwellers at the MSP fixed by the government.
A 42-year-old mahua picker, Sriram Uike, told Free Press that his community has always worshipped forest as Gods. He said forest has been his home ever since he gathered his consciousness. His father ran the household on the forest yields and so does he.
Ahilya Bai, a 57-year-old blind Adivasi woman, said forest has been her life. She began collecting Tendu leaves since she was 15 and now she has inherited the same to her children.
She said humans have been encroaching the forest land and causing harm to the nature. Forest and nature has always been there at human’s assistance but they never respected them, she added.
Nevertheless, the tribal community she lives in has dedicated its life to the service of forest and the forest in return took care of their lives, said Ahilya.
Nature bestowed its love on humans with yielding more mahua than ever, said another tribal Trikona.
Forest minor produce kept the tribal community and the forest land villagers employed in April, May and June, with mahua and tendu leaves being yielded one after another. The climatic conditions supported the produce and resulted in some of the highest mahua produce this year.
