Cutting forests turns Telangana, Andhra Pradesh into green hell

Hyderabad: Friday will be observed as World Earth Day. This year’s theme being “Trees for Earth”, the time is ripe for the state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to take the issue of deforestation seriously.

Recent studies by ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre in Hyderabad have revealed some worrying figures and exposed failures of the AP and TS governments in protecting their forests.

In a research to classify forests in AP as per “hotspots”, NRSC resea-rchers found that on an average, in AP 40.2 per cent of forest were deforestation hotspots, 35.9 per cent were high fragmentation hotspots and 19.2 per cent are forest fire hotspots.

A worrying part is that the NRSC researchers have found that major protected areas of AP, Nagarjunasagar Srisa-ilam Tiger Reserve (NSTR) – the country’s largest tiger reserve – Sri Peninsula Narasimha Sanctuary, Papikonda Sanctuary and Sri Ven-kateshwara Sanctuary have become deforestation and degradation hotspots.

In another research on forests of Telangana, the NRSC researchers found that 18.5 per cent of Telangana’s forests have been categorised as critically endangered and 26.1 per cent forests as endangered due to deforestation, fragmentation and forest fires.

The net forest cover loss computed by the NRSC scientists was estimated at 2390 sq km between 1975-2014 in Andhra Pradesh and around 1,300 sq km in Telangana.

Forest fires are a major problem in both AP and TS, found the NRSC researchers. In 2014, 3,489 sq km of forests were burnt including 1,072 sq km in AP. Among protected areas in AP, forest fires are prevalent in NSTR, Gundla Brahmeshwaram and Sri Lankamalleshwara sanctuaries.