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India Loses Forest Land Size of Virgin Islands in 2 Years
T Chatterjee, Environment Secretary, attributed this loss to Left-wing extremists felling the forests illegally and the paper pulp industry harvesting old eucalyptus plantations in Khammam. He claimed that the forests in Khammam had been cleared in less than six months with plantations being chopped and the extremists agitating people to cut the forests as well. The report though suggested that the loss of forest cover was largely due to the felling of eucalyptus plantations.
Blaming the loss of green cover on Naxals, is odd considering Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, which currently witness a far stronger presence of Left-wing extremists, have either seen growth or stagnation of their forests cover. It was noted that in Chhattisgarh, a net loss of 4 sq km of forests was recorded while there was a net gain of 83 sq km in Jharkhand.
Director General of forests, P J Dilip Kumar on being asked when the government expected to achieve the mandated 33 percent forest cover said that would require a structural change in the economy where more and more people migrated to the cities and the agricultural land left uncultivated could then be used to grow forests, as reported by The Economic Times. He added that failing agriculture was already making people migrate to the towns.
