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Impact of Betel Leaf Cultivation on Forests Masakazu Tani

Abstract  The betel is a major cash crop on the Teknaf Peninsula. The cultivation of betel plants affects forests in two ways. The construction of “pan boroj,” a facility to provide the plants with shading, consumes a large amount of forest resources every year. Another way of betel cultivation’s influence on forests is tree clearance in cultivation plots. Pan boroj tend to be constructed on gentle slopes where forests originally existed because more productive and limited flatlands are used for other crops such as rice. Trees are cleared to make room for a pan boroj, and as long as betel is cultivated, trees will not regrow at that spot. This study conducted village household surveys to record all pan boroj in a village and to quantitatively assess the impact of betel cultivation on the nearby forests. An estimate of forest resource use is equivalent to approximately 5% of biomass annually generated in the village area. Cultivation plots of betel plans also account for another 5% of the area. Despite the negative impacts of betel cultivation on forests, this study also finds the economic importance of betel cultivation in the village economy, and estimates that betel cultivation may compensate the lack of sufficient livelihood generated by rice cultivation in limited flat land. Keywords  Betel leaf cultivation • Rice farming • Forest resources • Forest degradation • Pan boroj

3.1  Introduction The betel (Piper betle) is the leaf of a vine belonging to the Piperaceae family. The betel plant is an evergreen and perennial creeper, with glossy, heart-shaped leaves and white catkins. The betel plant originated in South and Southeast Asia (Varier 1995). Betel leaves are consumed as “pan”, a stimulant and psychoactive quid in which pieces of areca nuts are wrapped in a leaf with slaked lime paste. Betel leaf chewing is widely prevalent in South and Southeast Asia (Rooney 1993).

M. Tani (*) Department of Environmental Design, Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 M. Tani, M.A. Rahman (eds.), Deforestation in the Teknaf Peninsula of Bangladesh, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5475-4_3

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Approximately 10–20% of the world’s population is estimated to engage in betel chewing (Gupta and Warnakulasuriya 2002). In Bangladesh, it is estimated that 30% of adults chew betel quid, and the rate is higher in rural areas (43%) than urban areas (19%) (Flora et  al. 2012), which creates a large demand for betel leaves. Bangladesh is one of the largest consumers of betel leaves, and it produces approximately 100,000 tonnes of betel leaves. According to the Export-Import Databank of India, the largest destination for Indian betel leaves is Bangladesh, accounting for 80% of the betel leaves exported from India. The betel is a major cash crop on the Teknaf peninsula, as it is in many other areas (Ghosh and Maiti 2011), and leaves are brought to larger markets in Bangladesh, such as