The hash reality of environmental degradation can be seen in Telangana forests where every minute a tree cuts down. This findings make you stunned that all these are illegal activities happens under strict vigil of government authorities.
A shocking – 10 trees every hour falls down in Telangana forests. Since October of this year, the government’s efforts to fulfil its pledge to provide pattas for forest land for podu cultivation have accelerated. As a result, the average rate of illegal tree felling in Telangana’s reserve forests has increased to that level.
It should be recalled that when the government requested new podu patta applications last year, 50,000 of them were submitted, totaling over 13 lakh acres of forest land in the state.
Tree felling proceeded in the state’s forests this year as well, with the hope that such removed forest portions would provide the promised podu pattas, despite the fact that applications were only accepted until the end of December last year and leaders from all parties made pattas promises.
Between April 5 and December 7 of this year, there were 211 cases of tree felling in what the agency refers to in its statistics as “natural forests,” resulting in the death of 17,456 trees. According to the records, a startling 16,851 of them were cut down between October 1 and December 7 of this year.
Five of the 216 reported cases of tree cutting in the state’s forests—which the department planted trees on after regaining illegally occupied forest land from people—took place in plantations.
The most significant deforestation, however, happened in October 2021, when 11,431 trees were cut down in just three days on the 12th, 15th, and 17th of that month, when rumours of the government looking for new podu patta applications started to spread. All three of these incidents of tree felling occurred in plantations.
By the way, the state government’s massive tree planting initiative, Haritha Haram, was the driving force behind all the plantations in Telangana’s woods. #KhabarLive #hydnews #hydlive
