/ Exposing The Timber Mafia - Looting the forest

We give another incidence of how active and organised the timber mafia in Uttarakhand is.

Jioli Thok is also referred to as Jioli Danda covers an area of about 2 km. in width and six km. in length. In this forest there is a predominance of Chir Pine trees. Jioli Danda is located in Dwarikhal Block, Pauri Garhwal District, Uttarakhand, which falls in the jurisdiction of DFO Lansdowne, Kotdwar, Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand.

There is reckless destruction of forests in this area which requires a thorough investigation. We found over 5000 trees in this area which have been cut by the timber mafia. Such destruction of forests is not possible without the active connivance of the officials of Forest Department. It is also not possible to cut so many trees in one go. Therefore, we presume that they have been cut over a long period of time. Moreover, such huge quantity of wood cannot be transported without the active connivance of the government officials responsible for their safe keep.

The entire operation of cutting trees was very organised can be concluded from the fact that the mafia has tried to systematically destroy the evidence. They had initially tried to burn the roots of the trees which they had cut but because the quantity was very huge the smoke started alarming the nearby villagers. While the muscle power silenced everyone but the whispers continued. The mafia then stopped the burning of the roots and instead started uprooting them. While this employed more labour the advantage was that the evidence gets destroyed in a few years because the cavity caused by the uprooting gets filled by erosion from the surrounding area during the rains. When we contacted the villagers they informed us that they knew about the tree felling but not even a single person was prepared to come out in the open and give evidence. They also informed that people close to officials of Forest Department were involved in the felling of the trees.

All the trees which have been felled in Jioli Danda were green trees. When we inspected the forest we found that the mafia had cut all the big trees and that there were very few trees with more that three feet girth left in the forest. The President of Himalayan Chipko Foundation had visited the Jioli Danda forest about twenty years back. At that time there were many trees which had a girth of over six feet. Not a single such tree remained. When he went there again this time after getting the information he found logs lying in a depression and along the roadside which proves that tree felling is still going on.

Like earlier reported, the forest mafia did not take the branches and the upper portion of the tree because it was unviable. We found several such unviable wood lying in the forest from which the leaves had not fallen off yet. This only proves that tree felling is still going on.

The Forest Department normally pleads that the villagers cut trees for their traditional use. However, so many trees can not be used by the villagers of that area even in 50 years. All the trees were cut for commercial use only. All the cut logs were transported in trucks.

The brazenness with which the timber mafia continue to operate is appalling, especially to conservationists. Trees still continue to be cut there.