Copyright 2000 The Times of India News Service
December 18, 2000
By Tariq Hasan

ALIGARH: Despite a ban by the district authorities, a timber mafia is brazenly going ahead with its tree-felling operation inside a forest about 15 km from the district headquarters here. Armed goons are patrolling the site despite the directives of the senior superintendent of police and the district forest officer.

At stake is the future of a large population of endangered black bucks and blue bulls, which have inhabited this forest since at least 100 years. This forest, which is endowed with a large number of sheesham, khair, babool and accasia trees, is also an important source of livelihood for the villagers who have found ample use of a large variety of herbs and medicinal plants that flourish in the undergrowth.

All that stands between the survival of this forest and its total decimation is a group of plucky villagers who, defying death threats by the mafia, is holding a dharna at the collectorate here. They have appealed to almost everyone - right from the police inspector of the area up to the chief minister and even officials in the Union ministry of forests and environment. They see a ray of hope in the response of the district magistrate Deo Dutta who assured them last week that the illegal felling would be stopped at the earliest. He also hinted that an inquiry would also be instituted into the scandal.

But the issue is obviously not all that simple. This forest was leased out to AFPRO, an NGO, in 1984 for a period of seven years. The idea apparently was to help the local villagers to participate in a social forestry project. However, when the NGO folded up, the Central Dairy Farm (CDF), a UP government undertaking, managed to transfer the forest in its name. Instead of preserving the forest, the CDF decided to auction the forest for a paltry sum of Rs 16 lakh.

According to casual estimates, the value of the timber should have been around Rs 5 crore when the felling operation started nearly two months back. The stakes are naturally quite high and with the tacit support of influential persons, the prospects of preserving the forest in the long run are quite slim.

This patch of forest, about 10 sq km in area, near Gursikaran village, had somehow survived the vagaries of time under the protection of the forest department. According to some of the village elders, this forest patch once formed part of a private estate of a Britisher. After independence, it was handed over to the forest department and till date, revenue records have listed this area as a ``forest land'' protected under law as a reserved forest since 1933.

According to a survey conducted by the Centre of Wild Life of Aligarh Muslim University, the forest is home to 42 blackbucks and a large population of bluebulls. There are also reports of sightings of swamp deer but these have not been recorded in the official census.

According to Pravender Sisodia, a resident of Gursikaran village and president of the recently-formed Bhoomi Mukti Jan Sangarsh Samiti, ``In the last week of October, local residents were shocked when tree-felling operation suddenly began.

For several weeks, the villagers were running from pillar to post when finally they came in contact with staff members of the Centre of Wild Life, AMU, and some members of the Wild Life Society of India who are now helping them in their efforts. Error: Unable to read footer file.