Trees, some of them are known as Royal Trees, worth Rs 1,50,000 crore has been looted from Kerala during the last two years alone, according to leading environmentalist John Peruvanthanam who knows the forests of the State like the back of his hand.
Sir, as he is known across Kerala had toured the districts from where he got information about the illegal tree felling braving his own life and what he saw was massive robbing of forests by the axis consisting of politicians-bureaucrats and timber mafia.
“Rose Wood, which is also known by the name the Royal Tree, costs more than Rs two lakh per cubic feet. Thousands of such trees have been chopped away by this cartel. Most of the trees cut down were taken away from the country in cargo aircraft and ships. These are used in the construction of castles, palaces and ranch houses in Europe and USA,’ said John Peruvananthanam, the unofficial forester of the State.
He said that trees which were more than 1000 years old were cut down and taken away by the mafia. The environmental and ecological values provided by these trees were thousand fold more than the Rs 1,50,000 crore that the exchequer lost by the illegal felling of these trees. This is the biggest anti-national activity scene in Kerala,” he said.
Kerala’s Leader of Opposition V D Satheeshan made a startling disclosure on Thursday that the bureaucrat-politician-forest poachers cartel has swindled the entire forest in the State.
“They have cut down all rare species of trees from areas where there was semblance to green cover in the State. We understand that forest land in eight districts were slaughtered by the Pinaryi Vijayan Government that has been ruling the State since 2016,” Satheeshan told reporters after leading a team of Opposition party leaders to areas which were cleared off forests by the timber mafia.
The opposition party leaders visited the entire forest ranges in the State from trees were cut down indiscriminately. “
What we saw was wanton destruction of the fragile forests in the State.
There were trees, nay, rare trees, many of them thousands of years old, which were felled by the mafia with the official patronage of the ministers,” charged Satheeshan.
On Thursday, a section of the vernacular media had come out with a quote from additional chief secretary A Jayathilak, who in a demi official letter to Land Revenue Commissioner K Biju stated that there were many errors in the Government Order issued to facilitate felling of trees. According to Jayathilak, the government was forced to withdraw the controversial order following large scale illegal felling of trees.
The additional chief secretary’s acceptance that there were irregularities in the said government order comes at a time when the Forest Minister, former Forest Minister and the general secretary of the CPI Kanam Rajendran were firm in their stance that there was nothing wrong with the order and there was no illegal felling of trees. But the Opposition Leader was emphatic in his allegation made on Thursday that whatever has come out in the open regarding deforestation was only the tip of the ice berg. Satheesan said though the Kerala Government has constituted a special team to probe the swindling of forest, he did not expect that it would serve any purpose.
The team is headed by S Sreejit, additional director general of police, who is reportedly close to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the CPI secretary Rajendran. Sreejit was the officer who helped Pinarayi Vijayan to facilitate women activists to enter Sabarimala shrine in violation of the age-old customs.