After Supreme Court nod to felling, Una khair wood to fetch Rs 15 cr

Rajesh Sharma

Una, March 3

The felling of green and dry khair trees in the forests of Una district is in full swing after the Supreme Court allowed the government to axe such trees from their forests in May 2023.

Una Divisional Forest Officer Sushil Rana said the Supreme Court had laid down strict criteria for the selection of the trees to be axed. He said the trees with more than 25 cm diameter at breast height were allowed to be cut. Moreover, trees on slopes and boundaries of natural drains were not allowed to be cut even if their diameter is above 25 cm.

Rana added that each tree which has to be felled, has to first enumerated and identified with its GPS location, and this information has to be uploaded to a website.

The entire forest area was digitally mapped and marked for trees to be felled, he said. This was a very tedious and a new task as green felling has not been done by the department since 1986 and the staff were not oriented to the new techniques, he added.

Discussing the forest cover in the district, the DFO said the total government forestland in the district is 893 hectares, which includes 187 hectares of reserved forest, 347 hectares of demarcated protected forest (DPF) and 359 hectares of un-demarcated protected forests (UPF) and the total forest area was divided into 32 sub forests.

Rana said all 32 sub forests had to be physically marked with yellow rings on the tree trunks for making boundaries. The staff entered the sub-forest, physically measured the girth, and marked the trees to be felled with white paint, leaving 25 per cent of plants above 25 cm diameter as mother plants for spreading seeds. “They were painted with red rings,” he said.

The DFO said a total of 1,76,163 trees were physically located, of which 54,741 trees conformed to the felling size, which were marked individually using the GPS. However, taking a conservative stance, the department actually marked only 37,910 green and 9,600 dry khair trees for felling, he said. He added that the Forest Corporation has been given permission to fell trees and that wood estimated to be worth Rs 4 crore has already been gathered.

Rana said when the felling of the marked trees is completed, the revenue generated from the government forest area in Una district would add to around Rs 15 crore, the highest in the state.