Community-Led Lantana camara Removal — Kanha Tiger Reserve Buffer, Mandla (India)

Lantana camara, introduced to India as an ornamental shrub in the 19th century, has since overrun large areas of central Indian forests, including the buffer zone around Kanha Tiger Reserve in Mandla district, Madhya Pradesh. Dense Lantana thickets crowd out native grasses and browse that herbivores depend on, degrade forest-dependent communities' access to grazing land and non-timber forest produce, and are associated with increased human-wildlife conflict as displaced wildlife moves toward farmland edges.

Since around 2012, and intensifying from 2015, the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) has worked with village panchayats and the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department to organise manual, labour-based Lantana removal in villages such as Indravan, Chichari, Orai, Muala Saini and Barkheda around Mandla, paying daily wages that have risen from roughly ₹174 to ₹243. More than 12,000 women have participated since 2018, with documented village-level results including roughly 75 hectares restored to Palash forest at Barkheda and 14.6 hectares reclaimed at Chichari; the work requires three consecutive years of follow-up clearing per site to prevent regrowth.

A dedicated 2017-2022 study on wildlife activity and human-wildlife interactions in Kanha's buffer found that treatment sites near farmland saw reduced wildlife activity (linked to loss of Lantana hiding cover) and a 30% reduction in crop depredation — but reported this difference as not statistically significant, and 76% of surveyed farmers still cited reduced crop damage among the programme's top perceived benefits. The evidence is therefore presented honestly as directionally positive and community-validated, but not yet a rigorously proven ecological or conflict-reduction outcome at reserve-wide scale.

Read the full analysis: https://behanbox.com/2025/09/30/once-swallowed-by-lantana-menace-women-are-reclaiming-forests-lands-and-foods/