By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Dec 11: Asserting that the Forest department has a zero-tolerance policy towards illegal felling of trees and timber smuggling, minister in-charge, James PK Sangma on Saturday said such offence will not go unpunished.
Sangma was responding to a query on reports of rampant felling of trees and timber smuggling taking place in parts of the Garo Hills region and West Khasi Hills.
“Let me assure the people that we will not allow these things to go unpunished and wherever we come across such kind of things the law will take its own course,” the Forest and Environment minister said.
Chairman of the State Programme Implementation and Monitoring Committee and Gambegre MLA, Saleng Sangma, had recently asked the National Green Tribunal as well as the state government to take note of the rampant cutting of trees and smuggling of timber in the State.
The MLA had stressed that in the wake of increasing pollution levels and other environmental hazards, the government and other authorities must take a serious note of the matter. “Not only illegal cutting of trees but rampant smuggling is going on and if you go to areas like Nongstoin and Mawsynram, the entire area is becoming barren, and in future, we may even have deserts there.”
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 per cent of the geographical area) and the tree cover is 657 sq. km (2.92 per cent of the geographical area).
The forest and tree cover in the state works out to 79.37 per cent across 17,803 sq. km, accounting for 2.26 per cent 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.
