Even as the poll maniac Government has been much engrossed in the on-going election affairs, fires devouring State’s forest patches at several divisions have skipped its notice.
According to sources, many important forest divisions including the Gandhamardan forests have caught fires recently posing a big threat to the wildlife, invaluable medicinal herbs and plants and other forest resources.
An estimate says there have been 2,934 forest fire incidents in the State in 2012, while 780 incidents of forest fire were reported in 2011, 2,523 fires were reported in 2010 and 2,080 in 2009. last year also there were thousands of fire incidents in various forests across the State. Forest clad districts like Kandhamal, Koraput, Balangir, Sambalpur, Sundergarh, Angul, Dhenkanal and Keonjhar have reported the maximum number of fire incidents every year.
Even as the period between March and May is highly sensitive so far as fire is concerned, the State Government looks handicapped and ill-equipped to tackle the menace. Forest fire causes imbalances in nature and endangers biodiversity by reducing faunal and floral wealth. Traditional methods of fire prevention are not proving effective and it is now essential to raise public awareness on the matter, particularly among those people who live close to or in the forested areas, feel activists working for forest protection in the State.
“90 per cent of the forest fires are man-made. Increasing dependence of man on forest produce has aggravated the situation. While the collectors of minor forest produce like Mahua flower and sal seed burn forest for clearing the ground in order that their work gets easier, the Kendu leaft department is largely responsible for setting fire to the forests so that collecting kendu leaf is facilitated. Though a lot of money is sanctioned every year for bush cutting and foliage clearing, the dishonest forest officials gulp the money and instead allow the leaf collector to burn the undergrowths. The fire thus created spreads far and wide and destroys huge forest properties,” said environmentalist and honorary wild life warden of Angul Prasanna Kumar Behera.
Behera attributed forest fire to several other reasons as well like burning forest for recreation by the villagers and leaving burnt cigarette or bidi stuff by people who arrange feast or consume wine near forests at night. He said that consuming wine near roadside forest has become a regular trend in many parts of the State. These people after consuming wine throw bottles and burning cigarette butts inside the forest causing fire. “April is the month of Danda festival. In Angul and Dhenkanal districts, Danda artistes and devotees move from one village to the other through forest routes. These people also set fire to the forest in order to steer clear their paths,” said Behera.
The increasing fire incidents in forests have caused havoc to the wild life as well as the people who live near the forests and depend on the minor forest produce for their livelihood. Notably, 65 per cent families in Odisha depend on firewood for kitchen fuel, as per Census 2011 data.
Fires are a major cause of forest degradation and have wide ranging adverse ecological, economic and social impacts, including loss of valuable timber resources, wildlife habitat, natural regeneration, reduction in forest cover, degradation of catchment areas, extinction of plants and animals, global warming, loss of carbon sink resource, increase in percentage of CO2 in atmosphere, change in the microclimate of the area with unhealthy living conditions, soil erosion affecting productivity of soils and production, ozone layer depletion, health problems leading to diseases and loss of livelihood.
There are a number of ways to stop forest fire but lack of seriousness of the Forest officials, corruptions in the utilisation of funds under various schemes and awareness failure among the forest dwellers and nearby villagers have been the main bottlenecks.
“There is a law that any person caught while setting fire to the forest is liable to punishment of 3-7 years but the Forest department has not arrested anybody in this connection so far. The department has failed to carry out surveillance work to get to the offenders who set the forest on fire. The patrolling mechanism is so weak; it has failed to round up the wine consumers, hunters or others involved in burning forests. As a result, such heinous activities are getting a fillip, rather than showing any sign of relenting,” Behera maintained.
“Important forest fire management elements like strategic fire centres, coordination among Ministries, funding, human resource development, fire research, fire management, and extension programmes are missing with State Forest department. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has prepared a National Master Plan for Forest Fire Control. This plan proposes to introduce a well-coordinated and integrated fire-management programme that includes prevention of human-caused fires through education and environmental modification.
It includes silvicultural activities, engineering works, people’s participation, education and enforcement. It is proposed that more emphasis be given to people’s participation through Joint Forest Fire Management for fire prevention and remote sensing technology be adopted for fire detection,” said an activist here.
He added that the Forest department has to give equal importance to prevention and control of forest fire as is given to plantation and activities like developing roads and digging ponds.
Unfortunately, the department has not co-ordinated and well placed strategy to ward off forest fire as yet. The money earmarked for the purpose is not enough nor is it spent fairly. He cited the steps to prevent fire taken by several bamboo companies which operated till 1987 in the forests of Odisha to collect bamboo and urged that the forest officials need to take a leaf from their book.