By Balu Pulipaka

Copyright deccanchronicle

HYDERABAD: A year after a freak rain and windstorm flattened a large swathe of forest in Mulug district, the forest is fighting back with new plants coming up, and the trees that managed to withstand battering wind speeds of around 130 km per hour slowly growing their crowns back. The climate event on August 31 in 2024, described by officials after the event as a ‘rare overland cyclone’ flattened some 50,000 trees, small and big in a 330 hectare area of the forest that is bisected by the Tadwai-Medaram road.Timber was salvaged from 17,000 trees which were cut into logs and transported to the forest department timber depot in the district, while the fallen non-timber species trees were left where they fell as they will slowly turn into mulch and provide nutrients to the soil. “Many trees that withstood the high speed winds lost their crowns but today we see them sprouting fresh branches and leaves. The regeneration is remarkable. The area has again turned green and there are a large number of young plants that have sprouted in the area. We are doing a regeneration survey to determine what species have sprouted and what kind of a forest we will have in a few years here again,” Mulugu district forest officer Rahul Jadhav told Deccan Chronicle. He said the forest staff had taken up a weed removal exercise to eliminate the possibility of invasive plants such as lantana and other fast growing weed species to eliminate competition to the regenerating forest species. The intensive fire management work in the affected area last year has also helped, he said. Since a road bisects the affected 330-hectare forest area, the department is also in the process of starting a fencing project along the road to protect the regeneration. “We will have a chain link fence along the road, and into the forest along the periphery of the regenerating area to protect the young plants and standing trees. A checkpost has also been set up on the road to prevent people from taking away wood from the fallen trees, and a watch tower has been erected on top of a hillock from where the staff can have a good view of the area and keep an eye for any disturbances,” Jadhav said.