India bugs trees in high-tech crackdown on illegal logging

The state of Kerala is resorting to drastic measures to defend its dwindling forests of rare sandalwood trees from illegal logging. Its Forest Department is planning to use satellite tracking to protect the trees. Under the plan, microchips will be embedded inside the trees.

Forestry officials will then be able to use a satellite to monitor the trees. Not only will any attempt to cut them down be detected - the Forest Department will be able to trace the movements of any smugglers who try to take timber out of the area.

The trade in contraband sandalwood is one of the most lucrative in India. The "bandit king" Veerappan, wanted for more than 120 murders before he was gunned down by Indian police last month, may have started out poaching elephants for their ivory, but soon moved on to the much more profitable business of sandalwood.

Amid the money and greed, India's precious reserves are in increasing danger. Just three years ago, there were 62,000 sandalwood trees in Kerala's Marayur Forest. This year, there are 55,000. The last sizeable sandalwood forests in the world are in southern India, spread across Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Deforestation is a serious problem for India's people. The stripping away of the forests has contributed to several successive years of drought and farmers are known to have committed suicide due to ruined crops.

A properly managed and sustainable trade in sandalwood is vital to the region's economy. The sandalwood tree has been prized for its natural scent for centuries and its oil is used in the manufacture of perfumes all over the world. Sandalwood is also used in incense - an esoteric buy in the West, but it is a staple in much of Asia. And the soft, scented wood is prized for carving and it is used in some Indian medicines.

All this puts sandalwood in big demand - but there are relatively few sources. It has always been a fought over commodity and at one time the death rate in the sandalwood trade was even higher than that in whaling.

Sources elsewhere have been overexploited. In Australia, most of the little that is left is protected and Indonesia's stocks are almost exhausted. With its huge reserves, India has done more than anywhere else to set up a sustainable trade in sandalwood, with strict laws on when trees can be felled and planting to replenish the forests. But the implementation of the laws is poor. Local politicians are often paid by smugglers and the huge forests are too big to patrol - especially when the likes of Veerappan lay down minefields inside them.

Satellite tracking will enable officials to monitor the forests and hopefully, with publicity, shame the politicians into action.