North Karnataka in general and Hyderabad Karnataka in particular appear to be heading for a severe environmental crisis due to fast depletion of forests with 11 districts having forest cover less than 10%. But the more alarming situation is in four districts - Koppal, Raichur, Bidar of H-K region and Vijayapura of Mumbai Karnataka region, which have a forest cover of less than 1%.
Vijayapura is the least or almost no forest district with a coverage of 0.11%. The other poor districts are: Koppal-0.19%, Raichur-0.35% and Bidar-0.99%. Kalaburagi (including Yadgir) comes next with a forest cover of 1.82%.
The ideal forest cover of a district as prescribed by the National Forest Police is 33% of its geographical area. Karnataka’s forest cover is 18.84% as per the Forest Survey of India report for 2014, but as per the annual report of the state forest department for 2014-15, it is 22.61%.
The other districts of North Karnataka having less than 10 per cent forest cover are: Gadag-2.62, Bagalkot-3.04, Belagavi- 8.16, Haveri-8.27, Dharwad-9.04 and Ballari-9.15. Needless to say, the poor forest cover has left these districts high and dry, with acute drought conditions almost every alternate year. The present drought situation has been acknowledged as one of the worst, with water becoming more scarce and people deserting villages in certain parts not for food or employment, but for water.
Some districts of south Karnataka have a similar problem, but their number is less. Only five districts have less than 10% forest cover. They are: Chitradurga-4.95, Tumakuru-5.21, Kolar (including Chikkaballapur)-6.15, Mandya-6.21 and Bengaluru Urban-6.85.
The Economic Survey of the state for 2014-15 notes that forest resources are under severe pressure with drastic fall in the area of dense forest cover (estimated at 70% of the total forest cover in 2001 and which declined to 60% in 2013 - a 10% sharp fall in 12 years).
In fact, 14 districts do not have dense forests. Western Ghats, one of the 25 bio-diversity hotspots of the world, is also said to be under ‘severe threat’.
Increased deforestation and degradation of environmental resources have serious implications for production and resilience of the ecosystem. Apart from the unabated general deforestation, what is causing more concern is the qualitative degradation of natural forest stock, although the Forest department claims to have halted to some extent the quantitative depletion of forests.
Withering woods
Forests cover less than 1% in Vijayapura, Koppal, Raichur, Bidar
Kalaburagi slightly better with score of 1.82%
11 dists in two regions have under 10% forest cover
Forest dept report (2014-15) puts state cover at 22.61%
5 dists with under 10% forest cover in south K’taka
Dense forest cover of total forests down from 70% (2001) to 60% (2013)
Western Ghats under ‘severe threat’