In our Central Indian tiger landscapes, lantana is a severe curse—it smothers native grasses and shrubs, leaving nothing for the deer, and thus nothing for the tiger. Allelopathy means it poisons the soil itself, stopping other plants from growing. The removal cost? Crores per hectare, a burning hole in forest department budgets, and often it just grows back.
I say this watching camera traps show empty, tangled thickets where chital should be grazing. The obvious answer is to keep clearing it, but my years in the field tell me we must first protect the last good patches from its spread; we cannot afford to reclaim it all.
#athletics#track-and-field
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