Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
The present Sindh government under the slogan of serving the people is taking crony capitalism to its extreme in rural Sindh by allotting forests to its favourites who bring in the Chainsaw Brigades to destroy whatever precious little remains of forests
Forests are among the most
endangered ecosystems on the planet today. Every day at least 80,000 acres of forest vanish from the earth. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports show that deforestation rates have actually increased by 8.5 percent from 2000-2005. It estimated that about 10.4 million hectares of tropical forest have been permanently destroyed compared to 10.14 million hectares in the period 1990-2000. Deforestation for agricultural land, thanks to Andreas Stihl’s chainsaw invention in 1929, is continuing at an alarming rate.
Greed prompts rampant deforestation whose effects include destruction of corals, degraded watersheds, denuded uplands, landslides, flooding, silting of rivers and dams, extinction of thousands of species, heavy soil erosion and the greenhouse effect. Forests influence climate change mainly by absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide. When forests grow, wood, leaves and soil absorb atmospheric carbon; because of the forests’ ability to absorb and store carbon they are considered “carbon sinks”. Deforestation insidiously strangles all life support systems on earth and has serious consequences for all ecosystems and biodiversity.
The situation in Pakistan is alarming and threatens to become worse. Less than 2.5 percent of the land in Pakistan is forested and is rapidly decreasing due to the deforestation rate, which now stands at over 2 percent annually and ranks second highest globally. Figures show that the forest area of regions now constituting Pakistan decreased from 141,530 square km in 1880 to 67,310 in 1980, a 52 percent decrease in a century. This rate has since risen considerably and the FAO estimated that the deforestation rate from 1990-1995 was 1.1 percent or 55,000 hectares annually.
The per capita forest here is only 0.037 hectares against the world’s average of one hectare. The total forest area of 2,527,000 hectares in 1990 was reduced to 2,116,000 hectares in 2000 and to 1,902,000 hectares in 2005. From 1990-2005, 625,000 hectares or 24.73 percent of forests were lost. A 2006 government report stated that, at the current deforestation rates, timber resources would be totally consumed within 15 years. This rate of loss is unsustainable unless immediate measures to curb deforestation are enforced. Within the next 25 years, only 20 percent of forests will be left here.
In 1947, Sindh had an area of about 500 square miles of forests mainly on the banks of River Indus. Thereafter the politicians and influential people ravaged the forests for land grab and the Forest Department actively facilitated the rape of forests. The influential landlords’, politicians’ and timber mafias’ greed for virgin lands and cheap wood has destroyed forests. At present the remaining 90 percent of forests are either under unauthorised possession or leased to local influentials on nominal government rates as Katcha land. Sindh’s share of total forest is about 0.678 million hectares. Little wonder then that in July 2008 experts blamed deforestation for the expansion of the country’s heat zone, reduced flow of the Indus River and shrinkage of the Indus Delta.
The main causes of deforestation are for agricultural land and fuel wood; the demand rises continuously as the population growth rate is three percent annually. With the situation as dire as it is, no remedial measures to stop the impending catastrophe are on the cards. On the contrary, influential landlords and politicians in Sindh have begun a grabbing spree with the support of the people in power under the garb of giving land to the poor.
Khaiberani Forest is a model of community forestry and one of the revenue generating forests. In 2007, 11 compartments of Khaiberani and Raees Mureed forests, under an MoU for rehabilitation and protection of forests, in the first agreement of its kind, were handed over to the Indus Development Organisation (IDO) headed by Mr Zain Daudpoto. The IDO established the Forest Protection Committees (FPCs) and began reforestation work on land recovered from influential people. The IDO rehabilitated/protected/conserved over 2,000 acres of forest and secured nearly 1,000 acres of land from the land grabbers. In October last year, the WWF included Khaiberani Forest, spread over 3,002 acres near Matiyari, in its programme to conserve biodiversity and safeguard natural resources in the Indus Ecoregion.
An inspection note of compartment 13 in Khaiberani by then Chief Conservator Forests Mr Aijaz Nizamani dated April 15, 2010, says that there was no encroachment and commended the work of the IDO regarding regeneration and protection of large areas. He noted the presence of 300 mature acacia trees.
On May 13, 2010, the lessee of the 13th compartment of Khaiberani started uprooting trees with a dredger machine. The IDO’s Forest Protection Committees conducted sit-in protests in front of CCF Sindh and finally the DFO Hyderabad went to Khaiberani and halted it but by then over 50 trees were felled.
Again on May 17 the lessee employed chainsaws for mowing down trees. The FPCs again protested on May 19 on the National Highway near Khaiber but the massacre continues. The charge of the Chainsaw Brigade has grievously wounded even the mighty Amazon Forests; this teeny-weeny Khaiberani will surely be obliterated. The Chainsaw Brigade’s arrival in Sindh means that its present 0.678 million hectares share will simply evaporate.
To make matters worse, the Secretary Forest Mr Mushtaq Memon has signed the papers to hand over 55,000 acres to influential persons for agricultural purposes without any conditions in Hyderabad Division alone. More forest divisions will suffer compartment 13s fate if the present government is allowed to have its way.
Mr Aijaz Nizamani, unwilling to see the destruction of forests in Sindh during his tenure as CCF, agreed to step down. Also his Change Management programme, which suggested changes in the adverse relationship to one based on partnerships with the locals and also private companies as a priority and secondly raising forests under an agro-forestry model as there are too few and too small river inundations to raise forests, was resented as it hindered the policy of deforestation.
The present Sindh government under the slogan of serving the people is taking crony capitalism to its extreme in rural Sindh by allotting forests to its favourites who bring in the Chainsaw Brigades to destroy whatever precious little remains of forests. Governments come and go but this one will certainly be remembered for driving the final nail into the coffin of Sindh’s forests by leaving them at the mercy of the chainsaw brigades. The forests and ecology of Sindh are doomed unless the people form FCPs to defeat the charge of the Chainsaw Brigade.
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com |
