Rubber trees are as green as any other trees but it has some difference. Unlike other trees or herbs or shrubs, the latex reach rubber leaves are not edible for human beings or animals or birds.
But in a strange phenomenon, one of the most endangered species available only in Tripura, the spectacle monkey, is now eating these green leaves. No, the species has not undergone any change in its food habit. It is actually the severe food crisis that the animals are facing in Tripura forest which is forcing them to eat unedibles.
“Yes, the spectacle monkeys are eating rubber leaves,” admits Ajit Bhowmik, deputy chief conservator of forest (wildlife), who is looking after the Shipahijala Wildlife Sanctuary, the biggest habitat of the endangered species near Bishalghar in West Tripura district.
It is not only the spectacle monkey, many other wild species are now going for unorthodox food and the forest officials has already noticed that it is causing their death too. Even the villagers are facing serious problems in maintaining their domestic animals as there is no grassing field in the vicinity. “We are thinking of selling our cows and goats as feeding them has become a difficult job,” says Haradhan Sutradhar, a farmer in Sonamura area.
The single-largest reason for such an unfortunate predicament both for wildlife animals and the villagers living in the vicinity of the forest is indiscriminate planting of more profitable rubber which has already destroyed most of our traditional forests and now encroaching the paddy fields, orchards and tea gardens. The very nature of this mono-crop does not allow growing any other crop or herbs or shrubs on which many of our wild life and domestic animals used to sustain. “No doubt rubber has come as a blessing and changed our rural economy, but it has come as a curse too, thanks to the unholy alliance among the timber smugglers and rubber mafias,” says another villager to whom rubber planters are known as “mafia” now due to the cruel method they are adopting to occupy land.
The alliance between the two is destroying the natural forest to pave way for rubber plantation. “Rubber plantation in reserve forests is strictly prohibited and to overcome this hurdle the rubber mafias have wiped out the reserved forests in Sonamura area,” he said.