SAL TREES -UPSC Current Affairs

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Context

The government-owned Tribal Development Co-operative Corporation of Odisha Ltd (TDCCOL) decided to procure sal seeds (Shorea robusta) from nine Odisha districts.

Details

The move, which comes after a gap of three years, intends to arrest the distress sale of the minor forest produce (MFP).
However, seed collectors and forest rights activists said the decision was too late.
Several tribal people, mainly seed collectors, will be deprived of the procurement scheme.
This will not be enough to check the distress sale of the MFP in the state as the seeds will be procured only from nine districts.
The seed collectors of the left-out districts will be forced to sell the produce at throwaway prices.

Odisha has no major solvent extraction plant that produces oil from sal seeds, due to which the intermediaries procure the seeds from the state at a lower rate and sell them at a higher rate to the oil companies of other states.
Odisha has a rich depository of sal seeds accounting for 25 per cent of the country’s production, which played a significant role in the economics of the tribal people in the state.
Around 40 per cent of the total tribal populations here are engaged in collecting and processing the seeds to eke out a living.
Other major sal seeds producing states include Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.
Generally, the collection starts in mid-April and is completed before the onset of monsoon.
After collecting the raw seeds, they are processed, dried, roasted, winnowed and pounded to separate the husk and the kernel.
The process is very difficult and involves the the labour of an entire family to produce the quality dry seeds.

About the sal tree

Shorea robusta, the sal tree, is a species of tree in the family Dipterocarpaceae.
The tree is native to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet and across the Himalayan regions.

Evolution

They have been a dominant tree species of forests of the Indian subcontinent since at least the early Eocene (roughly 49 million years ago).
Evidence comes from the numerous amber nodules in these rocks, which originate from the dammar resin produced by the sal trees.

Description

Shorea robusta can grow up to 40 metres tall with a trunk diameter of 2 metres.
The leaves are 10–25 cm long and 5–15 cm broad.
In wetter areas, sal is evergreen; in drier areas, it is dry-season deciduous, shedding most of the leaves from February to April, leafing out again in April and May.
The sal tree is known also as sakhua in northern India, including Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand.
It is the state tree of two Indian states – Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

Distribution and habitat

This tree is native to the Indian subcontinent, ranging south of the Himalaya, from Myanmar in the east to Nepal, India and Bangladesh.
There are many protected areas, such as Chitwan National Park, Bardia National Park and Shuklaphanta National Park, where there are dense forests of huge sal trees.

Culture

In Hindu tradition, the sal tree is sacred.
The tree is also associated with Vishnu.
The tree's common name, sal, comes from the word shala, which means 'rampart' in Sanskrit.
Jains state that the 24th tirthankar, Mahavir, achieved enlightenment under a sal.
Some cultures in Bengal worship Sarna Burhi, a goddess associated with sacred groves of Sal trees.
Buddhist tradition holds that Queen Māyā of Sakya gave birth to Gautama Buddha while grasping the branch of a sal tree or an Ashoka tree in a garden in Lumbini in south Nepal.
Also according to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha was lying between a pair of sal trees when he died.

Uses

Sal is one of the most important sources of hardwood timber in India, with hard, coarse-grained wood that is light in colour when freshly cut, but becomes dark brown with exposure.
The wood is resinous and durable, and is sought-after for construction, although not well suited to planing and polishing.
The wood is especially suitable for constructing frames for doors and windows.
The dry leaves of sal are a major source for the production of leaf plates and bowls called patravali in India and Nepal.
Sal tree resin is known as sal dammar or Indian dammar and is used as an astringent in Ayurvedic medicine, burned as incense in Hindu ceremonies, and used to caulk boats and ships.
Sal seeds and fruit are a source of lamp oil and vegetable fat.
The seed oil is extracted from the seeds and used as cooking oil after refining.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Q) Give an account of the cultural significance of the Sal tree in the Indian subcontinent. (250 words)