By SNV Sudhir
Visakhapatnam, June 8, 2012: While the forest department is striving to increase forest cover, illegal encroachment of forest tracts continues in Vizag. Despite action against these encroachers in the form of booking cases, it continues unabated.
Forest officials of Vizag division covering Choda-varam, Yelamanchali and parts of Ananthagiri of Vizag Agency, found that around 200 acres of forest land were encroached upon since five to six years in the plain areas.
Cases against 62 encroachers were booked. Unofficial sources say that encroachments are more than stated in the official statistics.
“If forest officials had started regularisation of encroached forest lands as per the Forest Act, there would not have any encroachment. As regularisation took a back seat, there is an increase in encroachment,” opined Mr G. Srinivas of Samata, an NGO working on forest rights. Encroachments prior to 2005, December are to be regularised as per the Forest Rights Act, 2006. Meanwhile, as there is a decrease in forest cover, forest officials are now busy designing strategies to increase cover.
“We have a target of increasing forest cover in Vizag division to an extent of more than 250 hectares by planting saplings of teakwood and other local species. The plan is already under process,” said divisional forest officer Shivani Dogra.
She said that remote sensing images help them to identify encroachments, enabling them to swing into action to recover the encroached lands.
