CAG: Private patches damaging forests

Thiruvananthapuram: Nearly 400 hectares of private forest, some of them in core forest areas, have not been acquired although proposals to notify these areas as ecologically fragile lands are with the Custodian of Forests since 2008. "The Forest Department has not acquired even a single private forest by paying compensation despite lapse of 15 years since the introduction of the Ecologically Fragile Lands Act," said the CAG Report on Economic Sector, which was tabled in the Assembly on Tuesday.

The Report details how, as a result of the non-implementation of the EFL Act, private planters inside national parks and protected reserves are harming the forest with impunity. KP Estate, for instance, which lies inside Silent Valley National Park, cultivates various crops without paying attention to the surrounding bio-diversity.

Five diesel pumps (16 HP), chemical fertilizers and vehicles are being used inside the forest. “The River Kunthi runs through the private estate and the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides inside the estate had caused widespread water and soil pollution,” the report observed.

Another example of disastrous practices is Down Ton Estate, Pachakkanam, a private cardamom estate spread over 208 hectares inside Periyar Tiger Reserve. Audit noticed that the entire cultivation in the estate was solely dependent on the use of chemical fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides that contaminated Kullarthodu – a stream flowing through the estate.

Further, the present owners operated a homestay. The use of forest for non-forest purpose is a violation of Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, the report said. Further north, a patch of 50 hectares of land within the new Amarambalam Reserve under the Padukka Forest Station, Karulayi Range Forest Office of Nilambur South Division, has obstructed the elephant corridor. The land was being used by its owners for cultivation, buildings have also been constructed. And the owners’ cattle graze in the surrounding reserve forest. Grazing of cattle inside reserve forest adversely affects wildlife ecology.