Times of India: Bhubaneswar: Wednesday,
August 10, 2016.
The state's
forest cover is getting depleted and has lost around 37,500 hectares (375 sq
km) to encroachers, information obtained under RTI has revealed.
Although
chief minister Naveen Patnaik in March had announced an increase of seven
square km of forest land in the state compared to that of 2013, the RTI
information paints a different picture.
Malkangiri,
Nabarangpur, Sundargarh and Khariar forest divisions record maximum
encroachment among the 40 forest divisions in the state. Different varieties of
forest land such as reserve forest, village forest, Khesra forest,
un-demarcated protected forest, demarcated forest and proposed reserve forest
have been encroached upon, the RTI reveals.
Environment
campaigner Biswajit Mohanty, who had filed the RTI, said private firms,
educational institutions, small industries and individuals have illegally taken
over government land.
"The
encroachment has not been done overnight. It has been over a decade that
unscrupulous elements have encroached upon precious forest land. Sadly, 60%
area of the total encroached land falls within the elephant corridors,"
Mohanty, who have accessed the information from the forest department, told
TOI.
Mohanty has
sent a letter to the principal chief conservator of forests S Srivastava urging
him to reclaim the encroached forest land. "The use of forest land without
approval violates forest conservation Act, 1980. Because of the encroachment,
man-elephant conflict is increasing in elephant-rich habitats," he has
argued in his letter.
According to
a guideline of the ministry of environment, forest and climate change, the
state government has to come up with the names of officers who were in charge
of a particular division. "I have urged the forest department to reveal
the names of officers so that responsibility can be fixed on them,"
Mohanty added.
The
information further reveals that a whopping 10,053 hectares of proposed reserve
forest and 7,073 hectares of reserve forest land has been encroached upon in
Nabarangpur alone. The district is rich in bio-diversity.
"We have
a law to punish people, who enter the protected forest. But, thousands of acres
of land is being encroached upon and the forest department is sitting over the
matter," environmentalist Ghasiram Panda alleged.
The wildlife
divisions where the land is being encroached upon include Sunabeda wildlife
sanctuary in Nuapada district and Chandaka wildlife sanctuary here.
Additional
principal chief conservator of forests (nodal) Anup Nayak said since 1980,
around 50,000 hectares of forest land has been diverted for non-forest
purposes. "I will look into the encroachment issue after I go through the
details," Nayak said.
.JPG)
.JPG)
