VILLAGE YOUTH TOLD TO SAVE FORESTS FROM FIRE

VILLAGE YOUTH TOLD TO SAVE FORESTS FROM FIRE

Tuesday, 26 March 2013 | SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR | in Bhubaneswar

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4The rising incidence of forest fire in the district here due to burning of Mahul leaves is a cause of concern for the environmentalists and officials. The Mahul collectors are setting the leaves gathered on the ground near the Mahul trees on fire to clear the ground for easy collection of Mahul. However, little do they bother that the fire spreads in the forests and causes enormous losses to the forest properties.

Kulamani Sahu of the District  Forestry Forum, while speaking at a meeting, organised by the Zilla Jungle Suraksha Manch and RCDC and supported by OXFAM, at Dangar Munda village, 50km from here, observed that forest fire guts huge forest resources including rare tree species, medicinal plants and herbs, while killing many eco friendly insects and animals.

“We should prepare ourselves to tackle the forest fire in village level, besides informing the forest officials to douse the fire, whenever detected. Moreover, the village youth should be involved in forest protection and a cadre of youth should be developed to deal with forest fire and forest protection,” Sahu suggested.

Although so far 198 community claims over forest in Balangir district have been submitted, not a single claim has been settled favourably.

The joint verification process by the Revenue and the Forest department has not been taken up on a war footing in the district, pointed out RCDC regional manager Amar Gouda.  He urged the forest officials to expedite the process of joint verification to settle the community claims.

The joint verification process should be taken up at the Palli Sabha level and the forest and the revenue officials should be present there so that the community claims be taken up and settled at a faster rate.

This is not being observed in most of the cases, pointed Prabhat Mishra of RCDC, adding that the forest cover according to the Forest Survey of India report has increased by three square kilometer. For this, people guarding and protecting the forest and the forest officials deserve credit, he said.

Members from eighteen forest protection committees attended the meeting and expressed concern over the destruction of forest due to forest fire. The members also expressed worries over massive timber cuttings by the people and their illegal transactions.

Assistant conservator of forest Goutam  Naik and forester BN Mishra, assured all cooperation to the villagers in dealing with the forest fire and other problems and informed the committee members about the schemes/provisions  of incentive  for person providing  information on forest fire. Naik also spoke about the various schemes of forest department. Thakur Sahu presided over the meeting. 

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