Save Tree

Rohan R. Rao

The cost of living is increasing, shooting up with every moment passed. Living is costly. The prices of basic necessities are rising. The technolgical edge comes at a cost. The malls. The pubs. Expensive indeed.

However, dying can be expensive too. We hear of farmers comitting suicide every other day; (in an agrarian nation like ours it is a concerning tick) But has it ever tinkered upon our gray matter that dying is expensive. Yes dying is expensive, more so in ecological terms. Its is more a concerning fact.

How is that supposed to be? The answer lies here:
More than 83 people die globally every minute. If all were buried, 50 acres of land would be taken up for burial grounds. Well real estate prices are shooting up, arent they? Expensive!!!

But more disturbing fact is that, as in Hindusim, burning pyres is the traditional way to do it, just the amount of wood required for the last rites to be performed is magnanimous. Assuming that 80 percent of the deaths occur in Hindu families, around 8 Hindus die every minute. That amounts to 8 trees being chopped down every minute to bid a farewell to the parting soul.

It costs about 300 kg of wood per dead body—one tree approximately. At the current rate of mortality it amounts to 8 trees per minute per dying Hindu. This amounts to 2400 Kgs of firewood for pyres every minute. That is a lot of biomass. But 'traditions', they say, die hard. So, it's hardly surprising that electric cremation, the best-known alternative to pyres of precious firewood, has not found the kind of acceptance it should have.
For, in these ecologically-conscious times, it's also a question of values and politics. In fact, of survival itself. So, 'how can the dead be allowed to deplete the resources of the living?', is much more than a moral poser now. The annual 24-billion-kg consumption of firewood, just for cremation—assuming that 80 per cent of one crore people who die each year (according to national statistics) are Hindus—in such times is, therefore, no less than an unforgivable act of crime.

A Large part of India like most other parts of South Asia and for that matter the rest of the world were till recently covered with thick forests. This region is probably best known for the civilisations that flourished in the valleys of its great rivers like the Ganga, the Yamuna and the Indus after which the country is named. Being a tropical nation and fortunate enough to have a share of rainfall as she does, peninsular India had lot of green cover. However this green carpet is disapperaring too fast for environmental health.Although there is evidence of deforestation even in pre-colonial India, especially due to the expansion of agriculture, it has been shown beyond doubt that the large scale destruction of the forests was started by the British, India's colonial rules.

Agricultural expansion and Urbanisation
The other major causes of deforestation immediately after independence was agricultural expansion, often state-sponsored. In more recent times it is new policies and programmes of development; rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and growing consumerism that have resulted in the widescale destruction of the forests. What has been equally bad if not worse is that the development projects very insensitively alienated the communities living in the forests, depriving them of their basic sources of survival, forcing them to move away and in the process making them refugees in their own land.

Plywood mills
The profits made and the incentives offered by the administration encouraged the plywood mills to go in for substantial augmentation of their production capacities. With more and more increase in timber demand, supply proportionally increased reaping rich profits. And with government subsidaries offering a support, there was no stopping to the rampant tree felling.

Commercial Forestry
Another major factor contributing to change in the ecological forest cover and tree felling is commercial forestry. Commercial forestry was introduced and the process of conversion of natural forests into commercial plantations was started.Commercial plantations like teak, tea, spices and condiments etc demanded the natural forest cover to be compromised. The introduction of commercial forestry resulted in a conflict over natural resources and the 'right' of the people to use the resources became 'privileges'.
The government classified the forests into reserved forests (large parts of which were used for commercial forestry), protected forests and minor forests, where the local people were allowed access to meet their survival requirements. Profits and the incentives inherent in timber harvesting, mining and power projects are the underlying causal factors of deforestation.

Over a period of the last few decades the direct causes of deforestation include activities of the local populations like, clearance for agricultural activities, and grazing of cattle in the forest which prevents regeneration of new herbage. Natural forest fires are common annual occurrences in the dry seasons and sometimes the FD also uses fire as a management policy. The main benefactors are the contractors responsible for tendu leaf collection as fire helps in the fresh sprouting of the economically important leaf. There have been a number of commercial threats to the forests as well. This includes the conversion of forests into teak plantations, and the operations of the charcoal contractors, who in the past had been leased out the parts of the forest.
In recent years, the state government has been granting long term leases to industries and monopoly rights of exploiting the forest products like timber & bamboo and mining products like coal. Big industrial houses have also been trying hard to grab fertile and good forest land under the cover of degraded and denuded forest land. Not only has all this resulted in the direct destruction of the forests, but government policies have also alienated the local people who no longer associate with the forests like they did in the past.

Deforestation is rampant in a nation like ours. Being a populous country, people have to be actually included at all levels in planning, decision making and implementation to make any programme successful and that afforestation cannot be looked as a sectoral responsibility of the forestry sector. It is a process of social engineering, that should involve all the stakeholders. Any afforestation project will make a dent only when the underlying causes for deforestation are adequately addressed. Without paying attention to the causes of deforestation, afforestation projects cannot succeed.

Some steps which can serve as a ray of hope to replenish the forest covers:

Any implemented program can be truly sucessful if the local population take an initiative. Its not just government who is responsible, but it is for each and every living soul to be morally and dutifully responsible for the deed. Action must initiated from inside.

Rural India is at the base of the pyramid of our developing India, both in terms of manpower as wells as resources. Involving rural India in afforestation program can be a stepping stone towards sucess.

Safeguarding forest is not an isolated process, but it is actually an integration with social, economical and political reforms.

Knowledge is power, but a vast majority of people are unable to acquire it. A small section of people dominate over it. Accurate knowledge and information are needed for taking the correct decisions.

Wooden carpentry needs to be swapped away from domestic India.

Synthetic alternatives and metallic substitutes are equally good and durable, if not better. More importantly, eco friendly.

Its high time that LPG reaches rural India. Biogas offers a good alternative. But still majority of India cooks on firewoods. This needs a drastic restructuring. LPG stations needs to be supplying rural India to save the green. If government can't copeup with these demands, private sector are eager to have their stake in this sector as well. Decentralize, introduce the private sector. Not only will it serve as an eco friendly energy resourse, but also boost up the rural economy.

Charcoal industry no longer need to exist. They must cease at the moment. There are so many natural and inexhaustible energy resources. Solar energy is one of them. Harnessing solar energy and its redirection for domestic and industrial purposes will contribue a lot towards conserving traditional and exhaustible resourses like firewoods and charcoal.

Use of woods for architectural purposes is a thing of the past now. Take for example, The Tipu Sultan's palace, which is completely carved out in wood. Nowadays its not a trend. Atleast this change has helped to conserve trees.

Commercial forestry is welcome, but not at the cost of depletion of natural forest cover. What sense does it make to chop down evergreen forests for tea plantations. It not only depletes the forest cover, but also drastically disturbs the food chain and ecological chain.

Restructure the power projects and mining industry to coexist in a harmonious way with the environment.

Cease all the government subsidaries to the plywood and timber industry.

In a predominantly agrarian nation like ours, agriculture is our bread and butter. To meet the growing demans of the population, the output has to increase, but instead of trying to increase the hectares and acres of land under cultivation, try to increase the productivity of the land alreadu under cultivation. Expand cultivation to the fertile soils of the deltas and river banks. The super fertile silt and alluvials soils need to be the utilized carefully and appropriately, rather thanjust encraching upon forest land for cultivation.Supply funds and fertilizers to the underpreviliged farmers.
Implementation of effective and irrigation programs. Bhakra-Nangal project and the Narmada project with Sardar sarovar dam justify the inputs when weighed against outputs it has provided.

Urbaniszation is good for Indian economy. More and more rural India is getting under the urban shade, but spare the forests. With a growing economy and infrastructure, it would be an absolute calamity to ignore the environment. When the tricolour unfurls, we see that the green is an inseparable part of it. Let it always be associated with the colours of development.

The onus lies on We. Us. Ourselves. Back to Chipko Aandolan!!!