GUWAHATI, July 3 ? Though the expert committee on identification of forest areas, formed as per the directive of the Supreme Court, had expressed concern at the depletion of the forest cover and recommended finalisation of a forestry action plan way back in 1997, the State Government failed to act on time to save the forest cover. The expert committee, headed by the Commissioner and Secretary to the Forest Department, was of the view that the State Government should approach the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Planning Commission with a full-fledged forestry action plan. The Committee also advocated strengthening of the Forest Department and to equip it to face the challenge of forest protection and conservation. The committee also suggested that adequate funds should be provided to cover the vacant and degraded areas with trees.
The committee, in its report, gave a detailed account of the extent of the forest area degraded, denuded and cleared. As per the report, 9,13,933.68 hectares of forest area including notified and recognised forests were degraded, denuded or cleared. The expert committee gave details of the reasons for depletion of the forest cover in Assam since the pre-independence days. The report said that in the pre-independence days, the depletion of the forest cover was caused by alienation of land under unclassed State forests and waste land in favour of tea cultivation, dereservation of reserved forests for the settlement of people affected by floods, settlement of famine affected cultivators during the third decade of the 20th century from present Bangladesh areas, heavy exploitation of forest produce, particularly timber during the second world war etc.
The report observed that during the post-independence period also, large scale depletion of the forest cover in the State has been going on. The report said that transfer of forest land to erstwhile East Pakistan during the partition of the country first reduced the forest cover in the State and since then, historic and natural reasons affected the forest cover. The report pointed out that settlement of a very large number of refugees from East Pakistan and riot victims after partition, loss of forest area due to the great earthquake in 1950 and floods that followed, settlement of unclassed State forest and wasteland, land required for Railways, ONGC, Oil India, Coal India and other such organisations, de-reservation of reserve forest land for settlement of flood affected people etc also affected the forest cover over the years.
The report pointed out that after six States were created out of the original State of Assam, disputed borders resulted in encroachment of the forest areas in the inter-State border and the problem has assumed serious dimension in the Assam-Nagaland and Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border areas. Encroachment is another major factor for the depletion of the forest cover and the expert committee observed that continuous attempts by the people to grab forest land as a sequel to the phenomenal increase of population has seriously affected the forest cover. Continuous attempt by the unscrupulous elements to go for illicit removal of forest produce and jhum cultivation in the hill districts also resulted in depletion of the forest cover to a large extent.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Forest, Sri Pradyut Bordoloi said that nothing much was done by the State Government to act on the expert committee report to protect the forest cover of the state. He said that the present government has decided to set up an expert committee to prepare an action plan within a specific time frame to protect the forest cover. ?It is already too late and if we fail to take some concrete steps immediately, the state will head towards a grim future,? he added. Sri Bordoloi said that as the first step towards protecting the forest cover, the state government has launched an eviction drive and a plantation progra-mme and steps would be taken to revitalise the forest department with active involvement of the public.
Commenting on the allegation by the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) that the government only targeted the ethnic population in the eviction drive and the National parks and wildlife sanctuaries were not touched, Sri Bordoloi said that the AGP was trying to make eviction a political issue. He said that the State government never divided the encroachers in the line of caste or religion. He asserted that the forest department has already launched eviction drive in the national parks and sanctuaries and ?we can assure that we would never compromise on the issue.? However, he said that the eviction drive in the proposed additions in Kaziranga national park was affected due to court cases.