Environment / Assam

GUWAHATI, June 9 – Assam has made remarkable progress in the drive to increase its green cover. In fact, it is now among the few states in the country that have a forest cover well beyond generally targeted 33 per cent. This year alone, the State has added 40,000 hectares of new forests. Announcing this today, Assam Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Pradyut Bordoloi, said that the latest state of the Forest Report of the Forest Survey of India has found that Assam has a forest cover of 35.3 per cent. The national forest cover is 20 per cent. The data, based on satellite imagery...

GUWAHATI, June 8 – At a time when the Assam Government is demanding declaration of floods and erosion in the State as a national problem, more than 30 flood and erosion protection schemes are pending at various stages of completion because of the failure of the Centre to release funds. State Water Resources Department sources told The Assam Tribune that 37 major schemes are at various stages of implementation, as the Central Government has not released funds for completion of the same. Sources said that the major schemes that could not be completed due to paucity of funds include the Palasbari...

Dhubri, June 7: It finds mention in the Directory of Asian Wetlands as a global biodiversity hotspot, but Sareswar Beel, 15 km off Dhubri town, has yet to make it to the Assam forest department’s list of priorities. Repeated pleas by non-governmental organisations to conserve this repository of ecological diversity have fallen on deaf ears. Nature’s Friend, one of the organisations that have been trying to protect the wetland, advocates turning it into a bird sanctuary.

Encroachment upon the adjoining forest reserve, rampant denudation of the green cover and heavy siltation caused by erosion...

GERUKAMUKH (Dhemaji), June 7 – For the power-starved Assam, the delay in the projected commissioning date of the Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Power Project, an undertaking of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), is bad news. Though dams in the seismically active North East are a cause of serious concern among sundry environmental groups, the positive side of the proposed power station is that once completed, it will feed an additional 2000 megawatts of power into the electric grids of the region.

And while the environmental groups are fuming and fretting over their...

HOJAI, June 4 – As already reported, the Supreme Court of India has constituted one “Special Investigation Team (SIT)” for protection of forests and wildlife of Assam, as well as other north-eastern states, vide its order dated 13/01/2000, in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 202/95, in the matter of Godavarman Tirumalpad-vs-Union of India & Others. The service of a few Forest officers of Assam in the detection and seizure of illegal timber transportation were recognised by the Supreme Court of India and issued order dated July 14, 2003 in writ petition (Civil) No. 202/95, in the matter of Godavarman...

GUWAHATI, June 4 – Rampant illegal earth-cutting on the hills in and around the city has posed a serious threat to the environment besides proving to be a nuisance to the people living in those areas. Dhupolia hills, Jyotikuchi, on the outskirts of the city, is one such area subjected to persistent earth-cutting for years. So much so that little now remains of what used to be a green cover on this once-beautiful hill.

Narrating their tale of woe, residents of the locality today told newsmen that throughout the year, except during the rainy season, earth-cutting goes on unabated on the...

DERGAON, June 2 – A gang of 40 angry tea labourers of Numaligarh tea estate attacked the Numaligarh Forest Beat Office at around 1.30 am on May 29 following a devastation created by wild elephants. The agitated youths destroyed the office building and also assaulted the forest officials. One forest official Thaneswar Nath received a serious injury in the attack. According to information, a group of wild pachyderms came down from Deopahar to the TE in the evening of May 29. The forest officials tried to change the route of the elephants by making noise but the pachyderms again came to the TE...

GUWAHATI, June 2 – More than floods, it is erosion that is posing a serious threat to Assam and according to an estimate, the State is losing land valued at Rs 300 crore a year due to severe erosion, particularly all along the south bank of the river Brahmaputra. Highly placed official sources told The Assam Tribune that the estimate of the loss was a very conservative one as the damage caused to different kinds of structures and crops were not taken into account while preparing the estimate. Sources also revealed that the plain districts of Assam already lost seven percent of the total land...

Kokrajhar, May 31: It is an identity crisis of sorts for the small golden langur population that has made a rubber plantation near this Lower Assam town their home. The nearly 100 golden langurs that roam the plantation are slowly changing colour, much to the chagrin of forest officials. Instead of their original shiny, golden fur, the animals now sport a dull, whitish appearance.

Abhijit Rabha, field director of the Manas National Park, attributes the phenomenon to a change in eating habits. The primates have been subsisting solely on leaves and nuts of the rubber tree since straying into...

GOLAGHAT, May 31 – The forests in Golaghat district are facing a virtual wipe out. The roads along which trees were beautifully lined now look much the worse for a malady of epidemic proportions – timber smuggling. This practice has taken its toll on the entire area even if families live life to the fullest from profits earned through this clandestine trade.

In Golaghat district, till a couple of years ago, huge trees, planted in the pre-independence time, would stand clustered nicely on both sides of the highways. Those trees would not only protect the highways from erosion but are...