‘Only those who live off forests have rights on them’
Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service
Jammu, June 28
Bhushan Parimoo’s heart beats for forests. A diehard save-forest campaigner, he has single handedly fought for forest rights, protection of tress and prevention of loss to ecology. His petition of saving khair trees was taken up by the Supreme Court at the national level. He has also fought for preventing silt in dams.
An ardent traveller, Bhushan posts pictures of damage to forests and green cover regularly on Facebook and other websites. “I make a statement on the websites. It moves the government,” he told The Tribune.
Q: You had a several years of struggle to save forests. When did you start?
Bhushan Parimoo: It all began in late 1970s when I had just passed out from college. The Salal hydroelectric Project at Dhiyangarh over the Chenab in Salal village of Reasi district was being constructed. I took up the issue of making adequate provision of taking care of silt which river carries in its normal course. The construction company was allowing it to accumulate on the dam lake bed.
Over the years, it would get accumulated and will exert pressure on the dam structure itself thereby putting avoidable pressure on the dam. The authorities stressed that there was enough land to handle the pressure if water level arose.
I formed an organisation, Environment Awareness Forum, which is running till date. We took up the matter and it was eventually proved that our argument was right.
Q: The issues you took up went up to the Supreme Court. What and how did all that happen?
BP: After taking the dam silt issue. I was disturbed to know the fate of khair trees from which katha is extracted, which is used for manufacturing ayurvedic medicines and pan masala. The trees were being recklessly exploited in the state.
This tree comes under the Specified Tree Act, whose felling is strictly banned. Still the government had allowed a firm to vandalise a forest having such trees in abundance. We requested the Supreme Court to intervene. It is now a famous case known as civil writ petition No. 171/96 titled, Environment Awareness Forum v/s state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Court was so impressed with our petition that it asked us to submit an all-India petition for saving the khair tree.
Q. What is the status of forests in J&K now compared to several years ago? What would be your advice on expanding forest cover?
BP: It is on the decline rapidly. The forests are in a mess as warned in 1987 in a seminar by RK Mattoo, as then director, social forestry, that, “If earnest efforts are not taken to restore the existing forests and raise large-scale plantation, our state will turn into a muss bowl”. At present, we have about 15-18 lakh hectare of degraded forests of which just less than one per cent is treated annually leaving 99 per cent untreated. This cumulative degradation is mounting and soil erosion is on at very fast pace. All water bodies in the forest are under threat. Wildlife sanctuaries are in a similar state.
There is a nexus between politicians, Forest Department and timber smugglers. Instead of removing encroachers, the government covered it all up by legalising encroachment under the ROSHNI Act, whereby those in possession of state land got right over the land they occupied. Officially, forestland was kept out of it and no objection certificate was to be obtained from the Forest Department to ascertain its tittle, but no such procedure was followed and forestland was encroached, which also got legalised. The problem was that there was no demarcated forest in the state. There is still confusion over forestland and revenue land.
Q. Tell us something about your organisation? How do you manage to run it without donations?
Bhushan: I broached upon the issue of salal project with many like-minded people who agreed to my fears about loss to forestland. It soon took the shape of a forum and slowly but steadily it is moving in right direction with sincere intentions.
Q. What are your views on the controversy of tribal rights in the state?
BM: Forests belong to people more so who are in or near it and who are born and brought up there. They are children of nature and for the nature. It is those who know its importance to protect, preserve and expand because on its survival depends their survival. As such, their rights are first and foremost. They were there and are there and shall remain in and around the forests. They are the rightful claimants, not the Forest Department which came into existence a century ago while these people are there for centuries.
Q. What is your advice on expanding forest cover in the state?
BM: The state has no land to expand, but it can go for massive afforestation in areas under its control, but it lacks will for that.
Q. Do you agree with the government data over forest cover in the state?
BM: No, it doesn't know even which area belongs to it in actual terms. Its records are not tallying with revenue records. Not a single forest division as of today can claim its records vis a vis revenue land.
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