A decade-long initiative in Madhya Pradesh to reclaim land overrun by lantana helps residents restart agriculture and restore native biodiversity

A decade-long initiative in Madhya Pradesh to reclaim land overrun by lantana helps residents restart agriculture and restore native biodiversity

Subject : Environment

Section: Biodiversity

• Lantana is one of the world’s ten worst invasive species and a species of high concern for India.
• Lantana is not native to India.
• It is native to tropical regions of the Americas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in numerous areas, especially in the Australian-Pacific region, South and North-eastern part of India.
• It was introduced in the country as an ornamental plant by the British in the 1800s, and has since spread over 574,186 sq km, covering 50 per cent of the country’s “natural areas”, according to an October 2023 study in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
• A 2020 estimate by researchers, published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation, shows that the plant occupies 40 per cent of forests (over 154,800 sq km), including tiger reserves. A 2019 review paper published in Botanical Reviewstates that lantana has also invaded most pasture lands (132,000 sq km) in the country.
• Eradicating lantana is difficultbecause of its rapid spread, intensity of infestation, allelopathy [chemicals released to discourage growth of native plants], opportunistic growth behaviour, reproductivity biology traits, and tenaious resistance to cutting and burning.
• It competes with native plants for space and resources and also alters the nutrient cycle in the soil.
• This invasion has resulted in the scarcity of native forage plants for wild herbivores. If eaten, the leaves can induce allergies on the muzzles of animals. In some cases, extensive feeding on lantana has led to diarrhoea, liver failure and even the animal’s death.