Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to the countrymen to raise trees in their private holdings for a pollution-free environment and combating climate-change. But in the way the tree planting programmes are going on in our country and in Odisha in particular, it is quite disheartening and contrary to the national interest.
The common people are not involved in tree planting programmes. The public funds are floated for raising tree plantations without any laid-down principles and the strategy for achieving the desired results. No programme or planning will be successful without proper strategic operations.
The successful strategies have four components as per guidelines of “caring for the earth” envisaged by the United Nations Environment Programme and other associated organisations. The components of such strategies include consultation and consensus building, information assembly and analysis, policy formulation, action planning and implementation.
The consensus building means general agreement on a course of action. The general agreement means the agreement of common citizens of a region for sustainable development. It is the true democratic process for carrying out public tasks for public welfare. The opinion survey and submissions of the regional people are always respected for carrying out any public and task.
The forest plantations are now carried out by the State Forest organizations like the Forest Department, the State Forest Development Corporations and the State Soil Conservation Department with least regard to public opinion and scientific approach to the problems faced. For example, take the case of “roadside avenue plantations” of Bhubaneswar Smart City. The whole objectives of tree plantations are to improve the decorative values of city roads and to combat rapid climate change. Bhubaneswar is very much vulnerable to climatic hazards like heat wave and cyclone. The city is very close to the Bay of Bengal. Hence, climate change is very acute in the city, which cannot be denied. But the tree plantations in this region are done by the Forest Corporation and other sister wings of the State Government without any logical thoughts given to selection of species and their adaptability to the environment. Also, the silviculture of each species planted along the roadside is not considered before spending the Government money. The Government exchequer is handled by the people, who have no sufficient technical knowhow to plant seedlings or saplings and to grow them. So the very purpose of raising avenue plantations in the Smart City is foiled for all practical purposes.
As this is visualized, mostly the saplings of Peltophorum Ferrugineum (Radha suda) Anthocephalus (Kadamba), Delonix regia (Krushna Chuda), Samaneasaman (Bada Chakunda), Spathadea Companulata (Churi) etc. are now planted along the roadside as avenue plants, whose silivicultures are not studied. These trees are very fast growing and shallow rooted, besides being brittle in nature. These are very much wind fallen in nature and accident-prone. Such types of trees are having very big biomasses, although these are of coastal and peninsular origin. So, these are not recommended for large scale plantations in heavy traffic areas. It is unfortunate that, these saplings are planted in the roadsides by the planting organisations along the road between the Nandankanan and Jaydev Vihar area. When the saplings attain pole stages they are pollarded before crown formations to arrest the height growth and to form new branches. This is quite unscientific in tree culture; especially in avenue culture. The crown of the tree is the most vital part of biomass of the tree, which adorns the bio-aesthetic values of the plant and ensures its eco-friendliness. This is the stage when the plants provide habitat to animals and birds.
The roadside plantations are done without proper landscape management and without coordination with the sister organizations, like Roads and Buildings Department, NHAI and electricity organizations. It is observed that the plantations along the roadside of the city are done and removed alternately for realignment roads. This is nothing but misuse of public funds by the bureaucracy. Recently, the Opposition leaders of various political parties of the nation were charging the Central Government, that the tribals of the country should not be persecuted by officialdom under the garb of regenerating the forests, while the afforestation operations should be carried out under compensatory afforestation funds allotted to different States. Nearly Rs 42, 000 crore is earmarked for afforstation projects in different States.
To compensate the loss of ecology, the funds are recovered from the mining owners concerned by the State Government as well as by the Central Government. Such rejuvenation programme should run scientifically with proper scheme of operations. Such is an operation, which acts as life support system of all forest dwellers and in situ tribals of the regions.
Nobody realizes the practical problems of the tenants and why the tenants are reluctant on planting trees in their private holdings and agriculture fields. The forest laws are so stringent that it is not easy for disposal of timbers from the tenanted holdings as per the Timber Transit Rules under the Orissa Forest Act 1972.
But for all practical purposes, the procedures are very lengthy, cumbersome, and lead to exploitations in various levels to which the people in general are disinterested to raise utilizable timber trees or fruit bearing trees in their own tenanted plots, agricultural bunds and farm lands. In this context, the authorities need to encourage plantation of species that have gone rare like the Chandan and Raktachandan trees while at the same time, respective laws need to be liberalised and made pro-tenants.
(The writer is a former senior forest officer and an environmentalist. Tel no 9937460649)