If you felt it was summer in February, blame it on the rapid loss of dense forests in the last two years.
NEW DELHI: If you felt it was summer in February, blame it on the rapid loss of dense forests — 26,245 sq km to be precise — in the last two years. This hair-raising information was given by amicus curiae Harish Salve to the Forest Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Arijit Pasayat and S H Kapadia to buttress his argument that precious little was being done by governments to enforce the law to preserve environment and ecology by protecting forests.
The depletion of forest cover was solely responsible for the freak weather conditions witnessed in the country at present, Salve said and detailed the efforts of the apex court in curbing the tendency of states to regard forests as revenue yielding assets. The present health of forests in the country was in stark contrast to the aims and objectives of the National Forest Policy-1988, which envisaged one-third of the land mass to be covered with forests, Salve said. Only 11.88% of the area is covered at present with dense and moderately dense forest, which was estimated to cover 19% of the country's geographic extent in 1988, he said. Looking at the figures assimilated by the Forest Survey depicting steady depletion of dense forests across the country, a concerned Bench asked: "Why is this taking place? Has anyone being held accountable for this?" The big loser of forest wealth among the states are Uttar Pradesh (3,000 sq km), Assam (2,788), Karnataka (2,600), Madhya Pradesh (2,541), Gujarat (2,328), Kerala (2,100), Maharashtra (2,507), Andhra Pradesh (1,448), Mizoram (1,448), Rajasthan (1,800), Himachal Pradesh (1,400) and Jammu and Kashmir (1,400). The lone state which showed increase in dense forest is Chhattisgarh, Salve said.