Jajpur: Destruction of forest cover is more than the compensatory afforestation as over 10,074 hectare of conversion land is lying barren without any plantation of saplings. The issue assumes significance as the country celebrated Vana Mahotsav week from July 1 to 8, which aims at promoting plantation drive and environmental conservation aiming to maintain the ecological balance of the earth. Plantation drive by various industrial and mining firms has been quite disappointing in the state in comparison to the destruction of forest cover for the establishment of their units. While it is claimed that saplings have been planted in much higher numbers as a compensatory measure for the chopped-down trees, the reality speaks otherwise. Industrial and mining firms after acquiring land from the government for the establishment of their units are required to buy an equal amount of land and carry out compensatory plantation within a period of three months.
According to the details available from the Forest, Environment and Climate Change department, a total of 34,807.02 hectare of forest land has been put into use in non-forest works for various mining projects by September 2023 based on Section (2) of Forest (Conservation) Act-1980. The changes were made based on the final approval given by the Forest, Environment and Climate Change department. However, instead of the conversion land, compensatory plantation has been done on 26,236.03 hectare of forest land and 15,060.81 hectare of non-forest land.
Moreover, the Forest Department claimed to have planted 85,90,766 saplings as part of compensatory afforestation measures after chopping down 7,80,767 trees on converted forest land. On the other hand, the plantation has not been done under the compensatory afforestation programme on 10,074.95 hectare of converted land by September, 2023. The total land includes 5,699.79 hectare forest land and 4,375.16 hectare non-forest land. Among the districts, Keonjhar has maximum land where plantation has not been done. Among the firms, Kalaparbat iron mines failed to do plantation on 10.21 hectare, Jiling Langlota mines on 19.561 hectare, KC Pradhan Iron Ore mines on 19.56 hectare, OMC’s Gandhamardan block on 459.340 hectare, TISCO manganese iron mines on 313 hectare, and Nuagaon iron ore, JSW and KJS mines on 155.961-hectare land. Similarly, under Cuttack forest division, Kaliapani Chromite mine in Jajpur district has failed to carry out plantation on 21.62 hectare of land. It was also learnt that compensatory plantation has not been carried out in Koraput, Sundargarh, Rayagada, Sambalpur and Khurda districts.
However, the Forest Department is yet to reveal as to why the programme has been holding fire. It was also learnt that trees are being felled in regular intervals on the lands earmarked for plantation due to the negligence of Forest department personnel. The department is also clueless on the creation of forest cover in mining areas and the number of trees that have survived. As per government norms, 10 trees need to be planted in exchange of one felled tree.
However, these rules are only in pen and paper and have never been implemented. When contacted, advocate Chandrasekhar Panda rejected the claim of plantation of more saplings than the number of trees felled for the establishment of industrial and mining firms. He said trees aged over 200 to 300 years are being indiscriminately cut down to make way for road construction works which can never be compensated. Moreover, the Forest Department has failed to protect areas having dense forest cover.