By Navin Singh KhadkaEnvironment
correspondent, BBC World Service, Assam
23 January 2018
Growers of world-famous Assam tea
are encroaching into forests, fuelling a conflict between elephants and humans,
locals and authorities in the Indian state have said.
Officials blame small-scale
plantations for most of the encroachment but local leaders told the BBC there
was no up-to-date land survey of bigger tea "estates" either.
A major association of tea
companies has rejected the accusation, arguing that forest coverage is in its
members' interest.
However, a study by the Indian
government has found that tea gardens are contributing to Assam's
deforestation.
"The decrease in forest
cover of the state is mainly due to encroachment in forest land, biotic
pressure, rotational felling in tea gardens and shifting cultivation," the
environment ministry's State of the Forest report said in 2015.
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