Category : Forest | Location : Assam | Posted on 2022-07-17 23:47:38
Guwahati: The northeast region of the country has lost around 4,350 sq km of primary forest area in the last two decades (2001 to 2021), which is nearly three times the size of Delhi having an area of 1,484 sq km, according to the data of Global Forest Watch (GFW).
GFW is an open source application to monitor forests across the globe in near real time and was started by a US-based non-profit organisation called World Resources Institute (WRI) in 1997.
According to the data, Arunachal Pradesh has recorded highest degradation in forest cover (1,250 sq km) followed by Tripura (1,100 sq km) and Assam (630 sq km) in the last two decades resulting in climate change alarmingly.
The other northeastern states have also witnessed rapid degradation in forest cover over the decades. Around 460 sq km primary forest degraded in Manipur during the aforesaid period while 450 sq km in Meghalaya 310 sq km in Nagaland and 150 sq km Mizoram.
The total degraded forest area can be estimated to 5.54% of the size of Assam having an area of 78,438 sq km.
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said loss of forest cover is a major reason for natural calamities like floods and called for a larger role of the forest department in reclaiming forestscover through plantation, clearing encroachment and working in coordination with local people to address the issue.
He said the forest department over the years has focused mostly on Kaziranga National Park, while there was a need to focus on other forest areas as well. “This has led to depletion of forest cover due to deforestation, encroachment and so on. The forest department now should focus towards reclaiming forest cover,” he said while directing the department to conduct bi-annual drone surveys.
He directed the forest department to prepare modalities to shift settlers, who are genuinely landless from forest areas to non-forest areas and adopt a zero-tolerance approach against all recent encroachments in forest areas.
Almost all the states of the northeast have lost the highest forest cover in 2016 in the last 20 years. In that year, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland lost the highest forest cover in the year 2016 while Mizoram, Meghalaya and Tripura recorded highest degradation in 2017.
According to the data, around 1,030 sq km of forest was lost in Arunachal Pradesh, 49 sq km in Assam, 49 sq km in Manipur and 28 sq km in Nagaland in 2016. Mizoram recorded 21 sq km of forest degradation, 310 sq km in Tripura and 46 sq km in Meghalaya in 2017.
Raising concern over the heavy forest degradation in Assam, environmentalist Hemen Das said the state government must come up with a concrete policy to revive the forest covers and ensure strict execution of the policy.
“Encroachment on forest land, rapid deforestation and urbanisation have taken place on a large scale in the last two decades. The consequence of these acts can now be seen in the form of increasing temperature, man-animal conflict and ravaging floods. We are heading towards an uncertain future. ,” he added.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/ne-has-lost-forest-areas-three-times-the-size-of-delhi-survey/articleshowprint/92942467.cms
