Meanwhile the current status quo doing to our country;
108,569 acres of forest land grabbed, PA told
Over 108,569 acres of forest land along both sides of the Indus River has been encroached upon by “influential” and “notorious” individuals. This was the written reply submitted by the Sindh Forest Department to the assembly but it could not be taken up owing to an abrupt adjournment of the session by deputy speaker Shehla Raza within a couple of minutes of its start on Monday.
The largest area under encroachment – 24,152 acres – was in Matiari district. It was followed by Shaheed Benazirabad – home district of President Asif Ali Zardari – where 17,278 acres were under encroachment. Other districts with the acreage under encroachment are: Kashmore (12,923 acres), Khairpur – home district of chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah (11,478 acres), Thatta (9,313 acres), Dadu (5,280 acres), Shikarpur (95,092 acres), Naushehro Feroze (5,032 acres), Ghotki (4,970 acres), Sukkur (4,317 acres), Jamshoro (3,753 acres), Hyderabad (2,678 acres), Larkana (1,571 acres) and Tando Mohammad Khan (730 acres).
The department said the land grabbers were influential persons and notorious too. Law and order in the kachcha areas was not favourable for a land vacation operation.
The department says that thousands of ‘gugal’ trees were destroyed in Thar desert in February 2011 by injecting poisonous chemical into them by local influential people though Section 144 was in place in different areas of Thar district. It said offenders were caught and Rs43,500 was recovered from them as the value and compensation under Section 68 (a) of the Forest Act 1927.
Answering another question, the department replied that some unknown persons caused a fire in compartment No 6 of the Belhat Forest. The area falls in block 25 of Deh Nasarullah and an area of over 963 acres containing natural growth — Lai, Kandi, Khabar and Kanasar — was badly affected. When some unknown persons ignited a fire, the deputy district officer of forests in Khairpur was present in Nara on an official visit and rushed to the spot and helped control the fire. The forest was later examined and the natural growth of Lai, Kandi, Khabar and Kanasar over an area of 70 acres was found badly affected.
The department said that the Indus Delta mangroves never occupied the 7th largest block position in the world mangroves listing. It was placed at the 27th position. The list showed that Indonesia with over 3.49 million hectares headed it. Brazil with one million hectares was at the second position, Bangladesh with 0.62 million hectares at the fifth position and India with 0.487 million hectares was at the ninth position. Pakistan having around 0.158 million hectares was at the 27th position. The Indus delta mangroves were affected by a shortage of fresh water downstream of the Kotri barrage, erosion owing to sea intrusion and other localised factors, the assembly was told.
Answering another question, the department said that over 50,000 acres of forest land had been leased out to various persons under the five-year agro-forestry lease policy of 2004 in an open auction. Slightly less than a half of it had been leased out in two districts – Matiari over 11,660 acres and Thatta over 10,000 acres.
In reply to another question, the department said that owing to the floods and heavy rains, around two- to three-year-old tender forest crops over 18,000 acres were affected. Of which, some 7,000 acres were in Thatta district. Over 1,000 acres were destroyed in Tando Mohammad Khan, Shaheed Brenazirabad, Jamshoro, Kandhkot, Sukkur and Ghotki.
http://dawn.com/2013/02/26/108569-acres-of-forest-land-grabbed-pa-told/
