GUWAHATI, July 1 ? Environmental activist group Nature?s Beckon today demanded of the State Forest Department to substantiate with physical evidence its claim that the State had now got its forest cover extended by 5.3 per cent. This rate of increase in the forest cover means that there is more than 4,000 square km of forest added to the State?s existing forest cover, said Nature?s Beckon director Soumyadeep Datta while addressing a press conference here this morning. Such a size of forest will need the State to create 20 forests of the size of the Nameri National Park, he said.
State?s Forest Minister Pradyut Bardoloi had recently claimed at a press conference that the State had attained such a growth in its forest cover. Explaining the ground for his scepticism, Datta said that according to a report of the environment magazine Down to Earth (March 31, 2003), which quoted the that forest report 2003, the State had ?lost 392 sq Km of dense forest over the past two years?. He also demanded the break-up of the Forest Department?s earnings, while reacting to the claim of the Forest Minister that the Department had been able to earn more revenue nowadays.
Making a vehement plea for keeping the Supreme Court ban on felling of tree intact for the State, Datta said that withdrawal of the ban order would mean granting fresh licence to the greedy timber lobby for further destruction of the virgin forest in the State. The Apex Court?s ban on tree felling has come as a boon for the State, he said.
The Nature?s Beckon would have nothing to oppose the State Government?s plea for lifting the Apex Court?s ban on tree felling had there been any serious effort by the Forest Department to raise tree plantation to meet commercial and domestic demand for timber, he said. He made an appeal to the Central Empowered Committee constituted by the Supreme Court of India on the issue, to physically assess the real situation concerning the growth of forest cover and the plantation activities undertaken by the Forest Department in the State. This should be done taking all the stakeholders into confidence, he said.
Referring to the State Government?s latest decision to treat only one-fifth of the about 500 sq km contiguous rainforests of Joypur, Upper Dihing and Dirak as a wildlife sanctuary, he reiterated that the entire stretch of the rainforests in Upper Assam should be declared as a single wildlife sanctuary. The Government?s action is illogical and unscientific, as only by including the remaining portion of this contiguous rainforests the total ecology of this biological zone can be protected. Otherwise, the objective of creating a new wildlife sanctuary there will be defeated, he said.
The State Government and for that matter the Forest Department, should come up with a clear cut statement as to whether the above decision had been approved by the high power committee the State Government had constituted on the issue on September 16, 2000 by an order number FRW.54/2002/3. The report of the said committee should also be made public, he said, adding, there was also an order of the Chief Minister to declare the entire rainforest area of Upper Assam as an integrated wildlife sanctuary.
He also demanded full compensation of Rs 1 lakh to those killed by wild elephants in the State and described the much-publicised joint forest management programme of the Forest Department as a failure. The people of Golaghat have rejected this programme of the Forest Department. The programme is so designed that it will lead to group clashes by pitting one group against the other, he claimed.