Order issued against plantation on routes used by Gaddi shepherds

It is for the first time that the Forest Department will undertake digitisation of the grazing lands, migratory routes followed by the Gaddi shepherd communities in the state.

Directions to this effect have been issued by the Forest Department to the field staff all across the state. The task of issuing grazing permits to the migratory gaddis communities will also be done digitally to facilitate the community, concentrated in large numbers in Chamba, Kangra, Mandi and Kullu districts.

The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) Himachal has issued orders to all the forest officials in the field against carrying any plantation drives in the pastures and water points used by the migratory Gaddi shepherds in the state. The decision has been taken as per the suggestions of the Grazing Advisory Committee meeting under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who holds charge of the Forest Department.

The Gaddi shepherds have always been at loggerheads with the Forest Department over their traditional grazing pastures. The issue of putting fence around the plantations, hindering free movement of the Gaddis along with their herds has remained a sore point. The shepherd associations had been alleging that the pastures on their traditional migratory routes in the state were shrinking due to which they were facing problems.

Akshay Jasrotia, state advisor of the Ghamantu Pashu Mahasabha, an organisation representing the Gaddi shepherds, while talking to The Tribune, welcomed the move of the state government. He said that it had been the long-standing demand of the migratory Gaddi shepherds in the state to preserve their pastures in the hills and migratory routes. The fenced plantation poses problem in migration in the mountain ranges, he said.

Jasrotia further said that though the government has issued orders directing the forest officials against carrying out plantations on pastures a notification in this regard should be issued under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 that the order becomes a law in the state.

The Gaddi shepherds undertake migration to higher reaches during summers and descend back to plains of Una and Kangra district during winters. Despite modernisation, lakhs of Gaddi shepherds continue their traditional life of migrating through the hill with flocks of sheep and goat. However, they are were facing problems in their annual migration due to decreasing pastures and climate change in the hills.