Protest against illegal land cultivation on Pong wetland at Guler

Villagers of Guler and Gatuther gram panchayats in Kangra district today held a protest demonstration against the wildlife wing of the state Forest Department for not taking any action to stop illegal land cultivation on the bank of Pong Wetland.

The villagers led by Thakur Dass, pradhan of Gatuther gram panchayat, protested against the Wildlife authorities at Guler where alleged illegal cultivation was going on despite prohibition ordered by the Supreme Court of India against any human activity, including cultivation of land in wildlife sanctuaries in wetland area across the country in February, 2000.

The irate villagers said that earlier too they had held protest demonstration against the ongoing illegal land cultivation in the Pong Wetland area on November 28 and demanded removal of the barbed fencing on the encroached land. One wildlife official, who visited the spot, assured the protestors that fencing would be removed in eight days but authorities had failed to take any action till today. They warned that if the authorities didn’t remove fencing and stop cultivation of land they themselves would remove it.

Local villagers, who participated in today's protest, alleged that illegal farming was posing a threat to the safety of migratory birds and ecology. “The farmers, who sow crops in the wetland’s wildlife sanctuary area, use pesticides for their crops which prove fatal for migratory birds as well as milch cattle who graze on the land,” they lamented.

Meanwhile, MR Sharma, a local environmentalist, alleged that officials of the wildlife wing of the forest department were responsible for unabated illegal cultivation of land in the wetland area. He said that the union government had notified the wetland area as a wildlife sanctuary under the Indian Wildlife Act 1972 in 1999 and the wildlife wing of the forest department, which is custodian of the Pong Wetland Wildlife Sanctuary area, has failed to check the practice of illegal cultivation being undertaken for the past several years.