Forest Soils of Jungle Mahal

Jungle Mahal, though vague in its existence either in the representation in the geographical mapping or in the government records, still the term of Jungle Mahal is yet immensely popular for its numerous forest patches, elephant corridor and man-elephant conflict with the local inhabitants. The forest area of the Jungle Mahal (composed of four districts and part of two districts) once is in depleting status, which is now reviving as reported by the Forest Survey of India in 2019. The probable reasons for this increasing scenario of Jungle Mahal are the impact of climate change, change of soil chemical parameters and local people's direct participation with the forest department for forest restoration. As the study of the impact of climate change is continuing, a pilot survey has been taken up to review the physico-chemical parameters of soil in the selected areas from the Jungle Mahal. Results obtained from the soil chemical analysis of the sampled soils up to rooting depth of 30 cm show status quo as recorded before for the forest stands of the south-east part of West Bengal.