The Karnataka government, after dilly-dallying for over two decades, has finalised the total forest area in the state. The government, however, has unmarked 7.73 lakh hectares from the tally that had been identified as forest area earlier.
Since December 1996, when the Supreme Court issued an order to all states to identify areas which are forests, the state government has grappled with challenges to make a conclusive report.
“On one hand, there were inter-departmental and legal issues with regard to the classification and documentation of the land. On the other, there were political considerations that had to be accommodated regardless of the party in power,” an official said.
An affidavit declaring forest area in the state has been finalised and recently filed in the Supreme court, sources told DH. In the affidavit, accessed by DH, the state has decided not to recognise 1,62,073.52 hectare from the list of deemed forest because the land parcels had less than 50 trees in a two-hectare area. Another 10,949.67 hectares were dropped because a parcel of land was less than 2 hectares.
The criteria of 50 trees in a two-hectare area was decided through a government order issued in May 2014.
A senior forest officer said the two criteria were introduced without any scientific backing. “It is true that fragmented forests cannot play the same role as forest areas with large expanse. However, these small forests are no less important, considering the pressure put on the natural forests for development works,” the officer explained.
“Apart from these frivolous reasons (50 trees per 2 ha and less than 2 ha), deemed forest status of about 21,000 hectares has been cancelled because the land was given to one or other departments. In a way, these measures amount to legalisation of forest degradation and mutation of land with forest cover for other purposes,” the officer said.
The government has made several attempts to quantify the extent of forest area in the state. In 2002, an expert committee submitted its report fixing the extent of deemed forest at 9.94 lakh hectares. The government set up a multi-tier committee which deleted 7.73 lakh hectares, citing various reasons.
However, on the recommendation of the district-level committees, 1.08 lakh hectare were added, making the total forest area in the state to be 3.3 lakh hectare.