Editorial»
Green for a while
KATHMANDU, JUN 19 -
Less than a week after declaring a nationwide ban on cutting, selling and export of trees on May 22, a decision that we supported, the government unceremoniously lifted the prohibition. As most of the illegal timber trade was taking place in six districts — Bara, Saptari, Siraha, Rautahat, Nawalparasi and Kailali — the government apparently saw no reason to impose a nationwide ban. But the fact is: trees were being felled in great numbers across the country, although the smugglers and shady dealers in timber products seemed to be concentrated in a few districts. Districts like Sunsari and Rupandehi were as affected as Siraha and Rautahat, two of the six cited high-risk areas. Even if it were the case that most wheeler-dealers in the timber trade were limited to the six districts, imposing a partial ban made little sense: they would only have to shift their base to the districts not covered by the ban.
Thankfully, better sense has prevailed and the government has imposed another two-month nationwide ban on felling of trees. There are two main reasons for the new ban. First, the decision can be seen as a straightforward implementation of the Forest Regulation 1995 which bars logging or any other activity inside forests from mid-June to September, the peak monsoon season and the time for rejuvenation of the depleted forest cover. Even without such a regulation at hand, the government would, sooner or later, have been forced to re-impose the ban as the reports of rampant felling of trees streamed in from all corners of the country. In the past few months alone, over 100,000 hectares of forests have been cleared in the Tarai and inner-Tarai districts.
Some middle-ranking government officials have been punished for their part in illegal timber-related deals. But the developments of the last few weeks, with the prime minister himself intervening to push for the punishment of some district forest officers, suggests reluctance on the part of the forest bureaucracy to take action against the guilty. This has fanned suspicions that forest officials at the very top may be involved. Unless the big fishes in the government are identified it makes little sense to lift the ban and give them another chance to circumvent laws to their advantage.
Instead of owing up the responsibility for the alarming decline of forest cover, the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) blames it all on the ‘political turmoil’ and different government-commissioned road construction and rehabilitation processes. Conservationists don’t buy a word of it. They have a point. It is unlikely that a handful of construction and development projects can be responsible for a level of deforestation that is worse than at the height of the Maoist insurgency. Sadly, the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led government seems both the authority to get to the bottom of the issue and the political to punish the guilty in its midst. The two-month ban nonetheless is a step in the right direction.
Posted on: 2010-06-20 08:43
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