Madikeri: Continuous illegal felling of sandalwood trees and the disease ‘Sandal Spike’ that struck few remaining trees in the recent past has pushed them to extinction in the district where they were once found in abundance few decades ago.
The trees provided shade by the road side for passersby and the black seeds which fell on the ground helped in their propagation. They grew on their own along with other trees with little support from humans as the people did not realise the commercial value of this hidden wealth in the beginning.
With extensive felling of sandalwood trees by the sandalwood mafia in the last 3 decades, it is difficult to trace those plush trees nowadays. Once found on hillocks, estates and plains of the district, they vanished from the sight before one could even realise. The prime reason for their erosion was the demand for sandalwood oil in Kerala. Once industries in Kerala started extracting sandalwood oil from the trees, the demand for sandalwood increased exponentially giving rise to the trade which flourished illegally and sandalwood thieving became rampant. Traders from neighbouring state Kerala started offering good prices for the product easily available in Kodagu giving rise to excess thieving when the locals got lured by easy money in quick time. The green trees which swayed by the day disappeared by the next dawn. Certain people started stocking the product without permission and traders started knocking at doorsteps for pieces of wood to feed their industrial bosses across the border.
The police and forest officials trapped a few offenders where as the rest continued their lucrative trade. When state government realised the negative impact after the damage was done, it imposed few restrictions to protect the remaining ones. It is at this point a strange disease called sandalwood spike struck the remaining plants through a bacteria called micro plasmatic organism. The excessive greed also forced few involved in the illegal trade to fell sandalwood plants which were not full grown.
The end result being the sandalwood trees are on the verge of extinction in the district and unavailable in binocular view too.
