Open Forum
New Delhi, 8 March 2023
Land, Forest Encroachment
PERVASIVE, CLARITY VITAL
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
The
encroachment of land and forests in the country is not just physical and
bluntly visible but matched by statistics. Millions of hectares of forests,
grassland and game sanctuaries are encroached upon by either the local
population or due to excessive tourism and commerce. The latter goes in the
name of development, but without much concern about repercussions, including land
subsidence wherein recent developments in Joshimath, Uttarakhand, are a testimony.
Forests
are cleared regularly for industrial parks, mining commercial plantations and
grazing tree cover of around 10 million hectares are destroyed each year. The
damage inflicted is so pervasive and complete that, in many cases, it is
irreversible and may take many decades to repair. Besides small-scale efforts
of some groups, there is no institutional policy or active manpower push to contain
the destruction and reverse it.
Following
an investigation carried out by national daily The Indian Express, the
country’s population has nearly doubled since 1981, its livestock numbers have
increased by over a quarter and at least 25,000 sq km of forest land have
either been diverted or encroached. Interestingly, it found that while Lutyens’
Delhi, India’s Capital, is known as the seat of power and home to men and women
who run the country, but “what’s not so well known is that the bungalows of ministers
and senior officers, even the RBI building on Sansad Marg, are ‘forest’ in the
official forest cover map. Parts of the campuses of IIT and AIIMS, and
residential neighbourhoods across Delhi are also forest”.
Further,
for over four decades, around one-fifth of India has remained consistently
under green cover on government records. Successive governments have not made
public the granular data of the country’s forest cover.
In
August last year, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav stated nearly
7,400 sq km of India’s forest land has been encroached. In reply to a
question in Parliament, he revealed that half of the total encroached
forest land was in the state of Assam alone. Nearly 377,500 odd hectares of the
State’s forest land has so far been encroached. i.e. around 13% of its forest
area. While the BJP government has taken it seriously and led an
anti-encroachment drive to evict “encroachers” from nearly 1,900 hectares of
forest and revenue land in areas, the exercise has got mired in
controversy with groups saying that a certain community was being targeted.
The Ministry
wrote to State governments/UT administrations to remove encroachment as per
existing Acts/Rules and to ensure that no further encroachment takes place. In all,
740,973 hectares of forest land has been encroached upon in 37 States. The
north-eastern States alone make up 60% of the total (with 460,000 hectares
being encroached upon). Another data found that Uttarakhand lost 70% forest
land which comes to around 50,000 hectares of its forests for various so-called
developmental activities in past two decades. And the result of such activity
to mining and road construction has been manifest, with huge land subsidence,
destruction of habitats and displacement of people.
Coming
to highways and roads that are constructed and expanded, this may seem like a
major advance, but these benefit the upper echelons of society while the poor,
whose lands are taken for such expansion, are at the receiving end. A few
decades back, there was no compensation worth the name, while in recent years
such compensation is far below market costs. Moreover, the money given to the
illiterate and half educated is, in most cases, not judiciously used. Such a
development strategy is neither economically sound nor ecologically tenable.
Land is being swiftly cleared for roads, bridges, highways, rail connectivity,
housing and private construction without taking into consideration what happens
to the land losers.
The
government’s approach of compensatory development works on the premise that
everything – slum land, forests, tribal homes, villages – is available at a
price. And devaluing sections the environment is a small price to pay to
improve the lives of 1.4 billion people. For this, is it necessary to green the
denuded sections of the landscape and in a way that considers plant density age
and biodiversity. The past three decades have seen a steady destruction of
regional plantations and the government is not quite active on this front.
Keeping
in view the vagaries of climate change, it is necessary to ensure strict
monitoring of conversion of land for infrastructural development. No doubt such
development is necessary, but it is equally necessary to ensure that the land
losers are assured of alternative livelihood. Added to this, the ecological
perspective must be kept in mind.
Recently,
Chief Scientist of National Geophysical Research Institute (NGTI), Dr N.
Purnachandra Rao warned that an earthquake similar in magnitude to that of Turkey
is imminent in the fault lines of Uttarakhand region and can happen any time:
“We have set up around 89 seismic stations in the Himalayan region focussed on
Uttarakhand. We are monitoring the situation and data shows stress accumulating
big time.” He opined the region would witness a massive earthquake any time due
to variations in the Earth’s magnetic field.
Reports
of house collapse are common and only a few days ago it was reported that
dozens of houses collapsed in two villages, in Jammu and Kashmir due to land
subsidence and mud slides that residents have linked to two high profile road
and railway projects. Even in Joshimath, land subsidence has increased substantially
in past few weeks since its impact became visible, according to the Wadia
Institute of Himalayan Geology. The main reason for this is the construction of
a tunnel just below it by NTPC to draw water from Alaknanda and Dhauliganga.
Thus, huge infrastructure projects need to be carefully planned and
executed after discussions and concurrence from engineers, geophysicists and
environmentalists.
In
forest and rural areas, wild animals need to be nurtured as they have been
grossly neglected. And finally, there is a necessity of promoting deliberate
underdevelopment in ecologically sensitive regions. Though it may seem
outlandish, the rebuilding of India must be closely tied to de-populating
certain overburdened areas of the country. A clear policy on what areas should
be available to tourism, what with limited tourism and no-go areas is
essential.
Land is vital not just for
agricultural production but for the economy. We cannot afford to lose land, especially
in a country like India, where the density of population is quite high compared
to most other countries. But with climate change, land will be affected in
various ways, primarily due to desertification and deforestation as also land
subsidence but this cannot be allowed to continue as the rural economy will
greatly suffer and affect the poorer sections of the population for whom land
is the only resource for survival. Thus, environmentalists from across the
country need to come forward to evolve an effective strategy to save land and forests
to optimize this valuable resource. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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