Forest ‘the saved’.
“Nature
never did betray
The heart
that loved her”
The knee jerk response came from the KPK government for the
protection of forest : ban on deforestation; focus on afforestation and crackdown on timber mafia,
are indeed commendable initiatives in this connection. But it is worth
considering whether these initiatives fixed the problem and plugged the
loopholes which have been resulting into gradual extinction of forest and
subsequent degradation of environment. A critical glance reveals that the said
actions of the government are directed more at the two stakeholders
(contractors and locals) and spared the third one_____ the forest department.
It is one of those departments which has been hell bent on destroying the very rationale behind its existence. it serves as pivot in all the ill practices advanced by the other two stakeholders. Therefore no measure can save forest until the whole culture of the forest department is changed.
Destruction of forest starts on massive scale when the
department is tasked to ‘mark’ the volume of dead wood to be sold off to the
contractor. By rules it is the dead wood and wind fall only which can marked
for carriage, but a large volume of standing green wood is also included in the
marking through a ‘secret understanding’ between the contractor and the department. Herein
some local influential are also offered hush money and thus green wood is
ruthlessly ‘massacred’.
The low- rank personnel of the department assigned to guard
the forest under normal circumstances are no less enemies of the forest. They
exercise their ‘powers’ when the locals get ‘permits’ to use wood for their
legitimate needs. Exceeding the number of permitted trees, making fake permits
and sometimes trapping innocent people on charges of deforestation are the
areas of their undisputed authority.
The measures taken by the government don’t take into account
the ill practices of the forest department itself. No other measure can be
helpful until the forest is saved from
its ‘savior’ beforehand. The volume of dead wood should be cross examined by a
third party both before and after the ‘marking’. There should be regular
surveillance at the site to ensure that no green wood is included in the
cutting. The body of GFMC should be enlarged so that more people are involved
in the process. The royalty of the locals should be linked with afforestation.
The outright ban on forest is indeed a leap in the dark,
which has more harms than benefits. The dead wood should be sold off, it will
decay if the ban persists which is a loss of all the stakeholders, further the royalty
infuses a sense of ownership in the local and incentivizes them to protect the
forest.
There are
trees with thousand years lifespan, which speak volumes of the fact that no
single generation has the right to consume it altogether but it is a joint
asset of many generations and therefore it
should consumed but must be conserved. It is high time for the
government to take prudent steps in
order to acquit itself in the court of history and show gratitude to
nature for its countless blessings. In the words of a noted English poet Byron :
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is
rapture on the lonely shore;
There is
society when none intrudes,
By the deep
sea and music in its roar”.
