FOREST MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS

The forest wealth of BTC has been thoroughly over exploited. Wide spread encroachment of forestland and indiscriminate felling of trees has severely degraded the forests.

Forest is essential for maintenance of life supporting systems on earth; to protect forest which is the most precious gift of nature to mankind from being destroyed due to diversion to non-forestry uses, the Central Government enacted the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. Earlier, prior to 1980, large chunk of forestland had been cleared and allotted to the landless people of the local community. Now, with the enactment of the Act, diversion of forestland for human settlement is not permissible. Villagers are, however, continuing to clear the forestland and occupying it with the mistaken hope that they will get allotment of the occupied land in future. People also took advantage of the poor law and order situation that prevailed during the last decade to occupy the forestland. It is estimated that at present more than 30% of the forestland in BTC is under the vicious grip of encroachers.

Forest department is ill-equipped to tackle the huge problems of protection of the forests in BTC. During the turbulent period in the last decade, 80% of the of the infrastructure like buildings, roads, bridges, and culverts in the forest areas was destroyed. Due to lack of accommodation, field staff of the department have been forced to stay away from the forest areas. Further, due to lack of transport and necessary fund, it is not possible to effectively mobilize the forest staff and forces required to support the field staff for the protection of forest. In the absence of forest staff and taking advantage of disturbed situation prevailing in the area, the miscreants got opportunities to freely indulge in illegal felling of trees.

All the districts in the Council are economically very backward. Majority of the population are agriculturists. The villagers practise traditional agriculture. Poor yield of agricultural crops from small and limited land holding is unable to support the growing village population. Alternative employment opportunities are not available for the rural poor.

The problem adversely affecting the management of forest is tremendous. To mitigate the problem, forest department has prepared schemes to involve villagers in the protection and conservation of forests through Forest Development Agency schemes. Under these schemes, the Joint Forest Management Committees have been formed. The Committees are provided funds to carry out plantations. They are also entrusted with a specified area of forest for protection. At present 3 Forest Divisions are implementing these schemes since 2004-05.

During the last financial year, the forest department has made a modest start to rebuild the infrastructure by constructing/repairing the Forest Rangers' Quarters and Offices at Bashbari, Kuklung, Mushalpur, Kumarikhata and Udalguri. A number of forest camps have also been constructed at strategic places such as Nayekgaon, Bishmuri, Superighat, Athiabari etc. At least 352 structures will be required to reconstructed to bring back the infrastructure of the forest department that existed prior to 1980 and the approximate cost required for the reconstruction is about Rs. 11.00 crores.