Report from India (Part 3): Protecting Wildlife on Tea Farms

Rainforest Alliance president Tensie Whelan continues her trip to India’s Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM coffee and tea estates with T.R. Shankar Raman and Divya Mudappa from the Nature Conservation Foundation.

India’s Valparai plateau in the Western Ghats is a biodiversity hotspot, and our hosts Divya and Shankar live and work there.  The plateau is planted with tea and coffee and surrounded by a rich rainforest reserve that is home to elephants, monkeys, endangered birds, tigers, and as I discover firsthand, leeches.

Biologists by training, our hosts have been active in the area for more than a decade, identifying and tracking wildlife and working to protect their habitat.  Over the years, as they watched the wildlife venturing onto the plateau become threatened by unsustainable farming, they reached out to the Rainforest Alliance Today their organization, the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) is a member of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (which sets the standards for Rainforest Alliance certification) and is our primary partner in India.

On our first morning in the Western Ghats, we wade our way through Indian savory donuts, flat bread rolled into cones, dhal, vegetable curry and lots of milky sweet tea before rolling out the door ready for anything.  And anything happened to be a troupe of endangered Lion-tailed Macques hanging out together in a forest remnant on the tea plantation.  NCF has hired a guard who stays on the estate to educate people about the macques as well as to protect them.  The group of ten or so monkeys gambol in the trees—the small ones playing, the larger ones grooming.  One older animal sits apart from the rest and when a car stops and its occupants get out to look, the monkey runs over and jumps though the car window looking for food.  The primates are characterized by a white “mane” around their faces, which are black/brown.

We don’t stay too long, however, as our hosts receive news of an elephant sighting on a tea estate. We drive over small windy tracks until we reach the top of a tea-covered hill, from where we can look down  and see a large female and smaller male with impressive tusks foraging in the forest area.  The two elephants gather up large swathes of grasses and tree branches (they don’t like tea) and stuff it down at regular intervals.  They look rather placid as we watch them from a goodly distance, and indeed, they are unlikely to attack humans unless surprised or feeling threatened.

The NCF staff know most of the elephants in the area and keep records of births, deaths, movements, etc.  They are working on an educational film for workers and farm managers about the elephant and how to live and work in harmony with them.

After the elephant sighting, we also saw giant multi-hued squirrels, a pair of   mongooses playing on a felled trees, and on our way home that night we saw a flying squirrel soar across the black sky.

The Valparai plateau and surrounding mountains is a magical spot and we are reluctant to leave our new friends, but it is time to head back to Bangalore. On our way down the 42 hair-pin turns (yes, they number them) that traverse the mountain, the monkeys wave good-bye, and an iridescent blue bird peers out at us from the heavy tree cover.  We will be back one day; I feel certain.

Report from India (Part 2): Improving Conditions on Tea Farms

Tensie Whelan visits Rainforest Alliance Certified tea estates in the mountains of southern India, where she encounters wildlife now benefitting from forest conservation measures on tea estates.

The clouds hang heavy in the Nilgris hills, which look blue through the morning mist.  They are planted with tea bushes that run in vertical rows.  Original forests wend their way through the canyons that fold along waterways.  It’s a magical place.

We visit the Havukul and Glendale Estates, both of which have been selling their leaves to Lipton ever since the company committed to sourcing Rainforest Alliance Certified tea.

At Havukul, the estate managers are proud of their new worker housing. Roofs have been replaced, access to potable water has been improved and waste disposal issues have been addressed.

As the manager explains, they have begun to measure water consumption and waste generation.  Since they had not monitored those indicators before certification, until recently they had no idea how much waste was generated.

They’ve replaced leaky pipes, instituted recycling programs and built a new facility to house agrochemicals and protect workers from toxicity.   The Glendale Estate has made similar improvements, while offering a one percent bonus plan for workers who recycle their waste.

Both estates have beautiful forest remnants on their properties, which host wildlife species including tigers Glendale has set up a wildlife drinking pond and reforested key habitat areas.  In their children’s education program, students on the farm and in the community learn about wildlife, the environment and recycling.

Report from India (Part 1): Reducing Waste and Pollution on Coffee Farms

In November 2010, Rainforest Alliance president Tensie Whelan traveled to India, where in partnership with the Nature Conservation Foundation, we are working to conserve farmland, protect wildlife and ensure the well-being of workers and their families.

In Part I, she visits Tata-owned coffee farms in the Coorg region of southern India.

My daughter turns 22 during this trip, which is why I’ve brought her to India with me to visit Rainforest Alliance Certified tea and coffee plantations.

We arrive at 7PM in the modern airport of Bangalore and are whisked away to an ashram at the outskirts of the city for two nights.  On the way, we see tiny shacks next to sparkling glass skyscrapers, temples across from sneaker emporiums, rows and rows of motorcycle helmet stores wedding palaces with garish rows of lights and signs announcing the names of the happy couples, and many, many cell phone stores and IT billboards.  Bangalore is the IT capital of India.

The ashram founder, Siddartha, is a native of Bangalore who has become an international specialist in sustainable development.   He has established the ashram in a small forest remnant and built charming lodges with pillars from old temples and bricks made from the local red clay.

While we are there, about 50 people dressed in colorful saris and tunics from the poorer sections of the city are there with their children to discuss how women can have greater decision-making power. Our host — a feminist, environmentalist and advocate — is active in an initiative to return millet to the native diet.  Millet, unlike rice and wheat, digests slowly, so it can keep you energized for a long period of time.  As in the U.S., where the corn lobby rules and has repressed healthier alternatives, India’s rice and wheat industry is actively opposing reintroduction of millet, says Siddartha.

After chatting with Siddartha, taking a yoga class, visiting a cow ashram (they collect different species of cows from around the country and not incidentally, collect their urine and sell it for cancer cures) and throwing petals at a god in a Hindu ceremony, we head off to Mysore, the headquarters of our partner organization, the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF).  Two of the organization’ senior staff, T.R. Shankar Raman and Divya Mudappa, are active members of the Sustainable Agriculture Network, which sets the standards for Rainforest Alliance certification. Shankar meets us in Mysore and together we spend five days with  touring Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee and tea plantations as well as wildlife study areas in the Western Ghats.

Tuesday we explore Coorg, the region where much of the country’s coffee is grown.  We are to visit two estates owned by Tata Coffee, Rainforest Alliance Certified since 2008.  To reach the plantations, we drive through Bandipur forest reserve where peacocks, wild boor, spotted deer, monkeys, and mongoose thrive in the deciduous forests.  The reserve abuts the coffee plantations, which makes wildlife management and the preservation of native trees on the estates of paramount importance.

Elephants are the most visible of the animals that visit the plantations, and a worker was killed recently when he surprised an elephant.  Working together with NCF, the Tata farms have posted elephant zone signs, employed a biologist to track the elephants and are planting Arabica rather than Robusta (which is a taller bush) in elephant areas so they can better see the animals.

Altogether, Tata Coffee owns 17,000 hectares of coffee, harvested by approximately 9,000 workers (5,000 come solely for the harvest).  The harvest season has not yet started in earnest; it runs December to March, with a little activity in November.

The managing director and estate managers introduce us to the changes they have made with the Rainforest Alliance certification.  For example, they have stopped using endosulphin, an internationally banned chemical (but one that the Indian government continues to recommend) and reduced overall chemical use substantially.

In place of the agrochemicals, the farms are using an innovative low-impact trap to eliminate with the beetles, which are the scourge of coffee worldwide because of the holes they bore in the beans. The farmers cut a hole in a used water bottle, fill the bottom half with water and put an alcohol lure in the top.  The beetle climbs in and falls into the water.  After the bottle is completely chockablock with beetles, they clean it and replace it.  Using 13,000 traps, they’re collected millions of beetles annually.

To decrease water use and contamination, the farms are collecting rainwater in reservoirs and using it to irrigate the coffee plants. Potable water is piped to the workers and tested regularly.  And the farms are experimenting with various techniques to reduce impacts of the coffee pulping process, which often uses a great deal of water and produces enormous waste. The techniques involve lining the waste pits with an expensive liner to stop leaching.  And based on new technology that is used successfully in Colombia, they have purchased a close-to-zero-water de-pulping plant for one of their estates.

Shankar explains that working with farms towards sustainability is an ongoing  process.  “It takes time to make changes, and each year workers and managers learn more and implement improvements,” he says.  The Tata farms have come a long way in the past two years and have a genuine commitment to the values and goals of Rainforest Alliance certification.