From sunjoymonga@vsnl.com Tue Jun  5 13:05:07 2001
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 08:24:48 +0530 (IST)
From: sunjoymonga@vsnl.com
To: Natural History of South Asia - General discussion and research
    
Subject: Tea garden pesticides affecting environment

Hi there, 

This is some shocking news regarding pesticide usage in tea gardens affecting wildlife. Appeared today's Times of India, Mumbai (May 23, 2001). The morning cuppa tea has a great cost, ecological and social. 

Best regards - Sunjoy Monga

LEAKAGE OF TEA GARDEN PESTICIDES KILLS 10 LEOPARDS, 5 ELEPHANTS

At least 10 leopards and 5 elephants have died in the last two years due to leakage of pesticides through waste water from tea gardens in West Bengal.

Experts feel this leakage will adversely affect wildlife populations. Since the tea gardens cannot stop using pesticides totally, keeping their commercial considerations in mind, the forest dept, pollution control board officials and tea garden managers are in favour of finding some practical solution, minimizing risk to wildlife. 

A number of rivers flowing through sanctuaries and reserve forests get residual pesticides drained from tea gardens. Sometimes toxicity of these rivers go up to an alarming level, as environmental research groups like Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment and Peoples Science Institute have found. 

Pesticides worth Rs 73 crore are annually used in North Bengal's 104,226 ha of tea gardens. Since usage of high yielding tea plant varieties has gone up and since these are highly susceptible to pests the use of pesticides too has gone up. When mixed with other solvents, these pesticides exert massive toxic effect on environment for a long duration, affecting birds, animals and humans. An European Tea Committee Surveillance report has reported toxic substances in Indian finished tea also.

"Sometimes, without the knowledge of management, tea labourers poison animals with pesticides by mixing those with meat, maize or banana leaves causing death. At least 10 leopards and 5 elephants died in this way. In addition, wild animals accumulate these toxins in their body through regular intake of river water containing these. This causes cancer, uncontrolled gene mutation, weakening of egg shell and visceral organ damage. Already there are visible signs of that also," says District Forest Officer (Wildlife) R Das.

Senior officials in the WB Pollution Control Board officials say there is no specific parameter to check or control use of pesticides in tea gardens. "We are only trying to encourage planters to minimize the use of pesticides or use only bio-pesticides," Chief of PCB, north Bengal zone, R Manadal says. "Production of tea will go down by at least 70 percent with 33 percent depreciation in plantation areas if all pesticide usages are stopped. The industry will die," feels senior planter S Seal.