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| Protected Forest Policy |
A protected forest is a specific term to denote forests with some amount of legal, and / or constitutional protection besides being a generic term to denote forests where the habitat and resident species are legally accorded protection. All the natural jungle within the estate is referred to as protected forest. This includes buffer zones as well. Protected forest will not include the extent under productive forest meant to be harvesting (latex, scrap, tea, coconuts & minor crops) /felling (timber/fuel wood).
Protected forest is more or less a virgin forest. The total extent of the protected forest of our company as at Sept 2009 is 704.09 Hectares & the details are appended below. The protected forest areas are shown in the estate maps. The protected forests also serve as the catchment areas and also as buffer zones. Any special flora & fauna found in such buffer zones will be listed in the sensitive sites list.
Extent of protected forest as at 2009
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| Name of the Group |
Total extent of protected forest |
| Mahaoya Group |
222.65 Hectares |
| Pitiakanda Group |
161.78 Hectares |
| Sapumalkanda Group |
141.05 Hectares |
| Udabage Group |
196.96 Hectares |
| Grand Total |
722.44 Hectares |
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Fire forest procedure:
Minor scale shrub fires are frequent in Feb – May period due to leaf fall of rubber trees and also due to the usual dry season of the year.
The Security Techs employed are usually extra vigilant during this period and no great fire damages have been recorded in the known history of our plantations.
As the season approaches the customary practice is to clean 06 feet wide area bordering the rubber fields commonly known as fire gaps to prevent the spread of fire into the rubber fields from neighbouring area mainly from village home gardens.
Any changes to this policy are at the discretion of the Board of Management of Lalan Rubber Agri Division and will be done in consultation with the relevant authorities.
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