“Today we have to walk for hours inside the Chure region to see old trees. These forests have become a common smuggling ground for both conservation authorities and timber smugglers,” said Uttam Acharya, Central Committee Member at Chure Bhawar Rastriya Ekta Party, Saptari. [break]
“The illegal felling of tress is happening every day but surprisingly the Saptari District Forest Office (DFO) and the officials of FECOFUN have taken no action. This clearly shows their involvement in the smuggling ,” added Acharya.
According to a survey by the DFO Saptari, out of 340.96 sq km of total forest cover in Saptari 17,817 hectares is occupied by 128 community forests.
Acknowledging the situation, Chief of DFO Shiva Narayan Yadav also admitted that trees have been felled in large numbers in recent years. “The greenery has vanished drastically and efforts to grow new trees are being done on a regular basis but curbing illegal logging has been the biggest challenge,” said Yadav.
DFO officials said they are not directly responsible for the conservation of forests because it is the community forestry groups which are primarily responsible for conservation.
“The conservation of the forest is their duty and we act only they approach us. This current situation is due to the lack of seriousness on their part,” said forest ranger at Rupnagar, Dinesh Yadav.
However, the community forestry groups including the FECOFUN pass the blame toward the DFO. “We can´t fully deny our involvement in illegal logging but the DFO officials are even more involved,” said Sectary of FECOFUN Dev Narayan Shrestha.
“Whenever we inform the DFO staffers about illegal logging incidents, they first inform the timber smugglers and then go out on patrol,” added Shrestha.
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