GUWAHATI, May 10 – The insensitive urbanization process of the city and the resultant pressure on the environment continues to extract a heavy toll on its forests, hills and wetlands. The city has a number of reserve forests, some of those forming part of the hills right within the municipal limits and some occurring on the outskirts. In addition, there is a wildlife sanctuary and a bird sanctuary, supporting a rich biodiversity including varied wildlife. Unabated encroachment and tree-felling in these forests have already robbed much of their green cover.
The 18 hills in the city in particular have been subjected to severe anthropogenic pressures, thanks to the growing population and inert government authorities that have remained a mute spectator to the vandalism being perpetrated on the hills.
Land use patterns revealed by satellite imagery show that of the total hill area of 7,023 hectare, patta land, government land, reserve forests and others account for 543.96 h, 1,449.27 h, 2,641.24 h and 2,388.53 h respectively. These data date back to several years, and the current position could be more depressing with human settlements continuing to expand on the hills.
Official data put the encroachment on the city’s reserve forests at 1,640 hectare, most of which occurs on the hills. The hill population, as per the 2001 census, was 1.23 lakh but that must have more than doubled by now, going by the city’s rapid growth.
The few occasional eviction drives by the Forest department have yielded little in terms of clearing or checking encroachment. This is because there have been no follow-up measures once an area is freed of encroachment. The biggest impediment to eviction drives, however, has been undue political intervention, as a major drive had to be aborted midway a few years back.
“Eviction drives are costly affairs, and those are rarely taken to their logical conclusion due to political intervention,” a forest official conceded.
The Forest department, however, cannot wash its hands off the matter, holding the political class responsible for the mess. The plight of the city’s reserve forests, the Amchang sanctuary and the Deepor Beel in the face of growing encroachment lays bare the department’s lapses in according protection to the forests, which is its primary responsibility.
Deforestation apart, there have been widespread poaching of wildlife, especially lesser animals and birds, in the city – something that goes largely unnoticed.
The Amchang sanctuary best illustrates the apathy that conservation has been subjected to. Officially, over one-tenth of the 78.64 sq km sanctuary is under encroachment. Significantly, fresh encroachments took place in Amchang even after it was declared a sanctuary. The available infrastructure also belies its status as a sanctuary.
“Along with expanding human settlements inside Amchang, anthropogenic pressure on the wildlife habitat has increased manifold, creating a situation conducive for various wildlife crimes such as poaching, tree-felling, etc.,” Moloy Baruah of Early Birds, who has been a regular visitor to the sanctuary, said.
The rapid loss of forest cover has already led to an intensifying man-leopard conflict in the city. Every year, a number of leopards either die or are captured while straying into residential areas in search of prey. The city hills used to have a sizeable leopard population but that has started to decline of late following the man-animal conflict.
“Loss of habitat apart, there could be a serious decline in the animal’s prey base that forces leopards to look for poultry and domestic animals in human habitations,” the forest official said.
The denudation of the hills and destruction of the wetlands is also aggravating the city’s civic problems, especially waterlogging. Rains invariably deposit huge amounts of loose soil on the drains, and with the filling up of the wetlands, they have ceased to act as natural reservoirs of storm water.
