While we are still reeling under the impact of the what is being called the year of forest fires in India, the government is putting more forest lands up for clearances to mining sites.?
prakashjadavekar.com
In a statement made to the Parliament by the Minister of Forest and Environment, Prakash Javadekar has said that between April 2014 and 2016, the Union ministry for environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) diverted 34,620 hectares of forest land, granting them final clearances, also known as stage-II clearance while diversion of 40,476 hectares will soon happen once the ministry grants them final clearance.?
Wikimedia
"To make mining possible, several forests are cleared and this leads to deforestation," says Dr Nitish Priyadarshi from Ranchi, Jharkhand.
"The vegetation is cleared in order to build the mining facility and laying roads. Several organisms and animals live in these forests. With the deforestation, these organisms and animals lose their natural habitat. So, they start looking for a new habitat in order to survive. However, most organisms and animals do not respond very well this change and end up dying. The biodiversity is lost in this process. A number of smaller plants and creepers that grow with the support of the trees also die due to deforestation."
Stressing on the impact of the mining on the environment, he adds, "Mining causes a lot of pollution as a lot of chemical waste incurred due to the various processed involved. This waste is released into water bodies, rivers and sea. The chemical composition of the soil also changes in the mining area. It becomes a desert-like environment where nothing grows."?
businessinsider.au
The states most affected by the clearances handed out for mining include Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, closely followed by Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.?
Last year alone, the Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) cleared 1,212 hectares of forest land for a controversial bauxite mining site near Vishakhapattnam. Apart from this, the same Telangana government also cleared the felling of 1,892 hectares of forest land for a thermal plant at Nalgonda in December 2014.?
Venkat Reddy Dasaram
The 2015 report of the Forest Survey of India states that the states of J&K, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Manipur, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands have recorded a significant loss in forest cover.?
States that have been able to retain their green cover include Tamil Nadu where the state government is working with the Railways to plant more trees along the tracks. Although this does contribute to the green cover but does little for the dense forest areas.?
Wikimedia
¡°There is adequate space for planting trees along tracks in Tamil Nadu since British engineers envisaged expansion and earmarked sufficient land for railways. The broad gauge doubling between Madurai and Kanyakumari is being implemented without any land acquisition. But survival of trees might be a challenge due to arid weather conditions in the State,¡± a senior railways official said.
In all, Tamil Nadu has reported a net gain of 100 sq km of very dense forest in the year 2015 and remains least affected by the mining sanctions by the government.