High Court asks Assam government to clear forest encroachment, check illegal felling

Justice Kumar and Jain, who disposed off the petition filed seven years ago, also took note of the fact that while the international standard for minimum forest cover stood at 33.33 per cent, the Assam government in its reply admitted that it was maintaining only 30.4 per cent forest cover in the state.

The High Court in its four-page order issued recently has also directed the Assam government to make up the shortfall of forest cover in order to take it up to the international standard.

The judges also took note of allegations that there were some attempts to settle people in forest land, and said that this must not be allowed as it is bound to affect the forest and encourage illegal felling of trees.

The direction of the high court comes at a time when union minister of state for forest and environment Babulal Marandi, announced in his visit to Assam this week that the seven Northeastern states had lost 278 sq kms of forest cover in the last decade.

In Assam, while 243 sq kms of forest cover was lost in 1991-93, the loss in 1997-99 was 136 sq kms, minister Marandi told newsmen at Dibrugarh on Thursday. In comparison to this, there is also a ray of hope; Arunachal Pradesh has added 245 sq kms to its forest cover, followed by Tripura with 200 sq kms in the past three years.

The Assam government, in its reply to the High Court has stated that serious efforts were on to both preserving the existing forest cover as well as to increase it. One such effort reported to the High Court was the notification for extending the Nambor wildlife sanctuary in Upper Assam by another 37 sq kms.

The state government also told the High Court that steps have been taken to ensure that the Deepar Beel, a huge swamp on the western outskirts of Guwahati city was cleared of encroachments.

The court in its order however has put it on record that Talukdar, the petitioner, was not satisfied with the efforts being taken by the state government. Talukdar is stated to have told the court that while stpes were being taken, encroachment on forest land was still continuing. Such encroachment causes double damage — illegal felling of trees as well as disturbance to wildlife.

Even as the petition is being disposed off, it is heartening to note that the state government has already cleared a major are close to the world-famous Kaziranga National Park, driving out about 500 families who had been encroaching upon the government land which was earmarked for extention of the park several years ago.