SHILLONG, June 26: Meghalaya’s ecology is under constant threat due to rampant felling of trees and smuggling of timber.
According to the Forest Survey of India’s 2017 report, the forest cover of the state is 17,146 sq. km (74% of the geographical area) and the tree cover is 657 sq. km (2.92% of the geographical area).
The forest and tree cover in the state works out to 79.37% across 17,803 sq. km, accounting for 2.26% of India’s forest and tree cover against the national goal of maintaining two-third of the land area in hills and mountainous regions of the country. Meghalaya ranks 4th in terms of percentage of forest cover in the country.
But illegal felling and saw-mills and timber smuggling have been a great cause of concern despite action taken from time to time, Home Minister Lakhmen Rymbui said.
“Illegal felling of trees is a cause of concern and the Forest Department is looking into it. We have seen many reports and especially in Garo Hills region on the seizure of illegal timber and closure of many sawmills,” he said on Saturday.
The Home Minister, who was until recently also holding the Environment portfolio lamented the illegal activities despite efforts to curb them when asked the action taken appears to be too little.
The Forest and Environment Department website says 45 licensed wood-based industries comprising 85 units operate in seven notified industrial estates. Many illegal sawmills have been closed down, officials said.
Naba Bhattacharjee, an environmentalist and former member of a National Green Tribunal committee, said: “There has been a huge depletion in the forest cover. Garo Hills is still better as there is a wide range of forest cover but in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills region, including Ri-Bhoi, we have lost substantial forest cover over the years.”
The Garo Hills situation was bad at one point in time, but things have improved in the last 10 years, he added.
Bhattacharjee has been fighting against deforestation and filed several PILs in the Supreme Court and High Court from 2007. “The reason I filed PIL in the High Court is due to the redefinition of a forest,” he said.
The State Assembly had in 2013 changed the definition of a forest by increasing the number of trees per acre.
“Earlier, it was 20-23 trees per acre to be considered a forest. It was raised to 100 trees per acre. In Meghalaya, where will you find this many trees per acre? Meghalaya was changed to a non-forest state in one go,” he said, lamenting that the PIL challenging the redefinition was not accepted by the High Court.
“I have told the PCCF that this redefinition has to be reviewed and classified into temperate and tropical forest if we are to stop felling,” Bhattacharjee said.
He also said the felling of trees on private land has to be done in accordance with the law. “It is not that the rules need not be followed because Meghalaya is a Sixth Schedule state,” he said, citing the example of coal that belongs to the people but MMRD and other Acts have to be complied with.
He suggested a working plan even for private forest just like the forest under government control.
NPP chief and Gambegre MLA Saleng Sangma, who has been very vocal about the issue and has exposed illegal sawmills and timber smuggling in the Garo Hills region said the situation the NGOs have helped in improving the scenario in the Garo Hills.
He said the West Khasi Hills district has been the worst affected with even the NGT unmoved about felling there.
Referring to the chopping of 100-year-old pine trees for the expansion of a road in Upper Shillong, Sangma said: “I was happy that a few people spoke out when NHIDCL cut down a few of those trees.”
He appealed to everyone to move out of symbolic acts of celebrating just one day as Environment Day and start raising their voices against felling and timber smuggling.
