www.sakti.in - SAKTI-Conserving the forest

State sponsored deforestation was totally stopped by 1993 in East Godavari Kondareddy tribes habitat

Forcing the closure of wood based industry

"The policy of the government which has seriously affected the food supply of the Konda Reddis in this area (Eastern Ghats) is the granting of the right to fell mango trees in the forest to the Godavari Plywood factory set up in Rampachodavaram. The supply of kernels of mango stones which are a main source of food for the Reddis during rainy season is dwindling due to the felling of this fruit tree on a large scale."

Prof. Christoph von Furer Haimendorf in Tribes of India: Struggle for Survival,
Oxford University Press 1982

The East Godavari Forest working plan proposed the virgin forests of Rampa and Gudem Agencies and an area of 80,780 hectares was earmarked for selection working on 20 year felling cycle. The factory started working from 1976 and worked on 9 of the 20 coupes.

Political Economy of State Property and the Commons Forests of the Rampa Country of South India, Prof. D.Narasimha Reddy, University of Hyderabad. Paper presented in the fifth annual common Property conference on "Reinventing the Commons", International Association for the Study of Common Property Bodo, Norway 24-28 May. 1995.

Tribal youth celebrating the High Court order preventingfelling of fruit bearing trees before Godavari Ply Wood factory, Rampachodavaram - May 1987

TRIBALS TREK TO SAVE GODAVARI DELTA FORESTS

- C Lokeswara Rao - Times of India April 30, 1991

One of the common complaints about denudation is that it is carried out with the "protection" of government agencies like the forest department. At one level, the government winks at cutting of trees on a scale magnified several times over the number mentioned in permits. At another level, permits are issued in violation of forest department’s rules or in defiance of the spirit of conservation which ought to gride the department. It is to Sakti’s credit that it has documented such violations and anomalies extensively. Motivated people in many villages to report such vilations to prevent tree cutting in the first place and fought legal battles right up to the high court.

One of Sakti’s major campaigns was against a plywood unit which had been allotted 60,000 hectares of reserved forest at a rate of Rs.70 per cubic metre. The open market rate for mango trees, which accounted for 80 per cent of feelings by the unit, was Rs.1,500.

SAKTI generated over 300 complaints about trees that had been cut or marked for felling in violation of rules. Felling Rules and Silvicultural practices stipulated as follows. Only matured or dying trees were to be felled. Jeelugu (Caryota urens) palm, trees yielding minor forest produce like tamarind or cane brakes, creepers were not to be touched. A gap of 20 meters from a stream. Cutting a tree was not allowed if it would disturb the canopy. Complaints citing instances of violation of the above rules saved many trees. At one stage the high cour which lifted a stay obtained by Sakti stipulated that fruit trrees should not be cut.

Around this time the government of Andhra Pradesh revised the rate charged for trees allotted to the unit. The revision was contested in courts and cutting of trees has been stopped pending disposal of this litigation.

Date: 8.8.1989

From
P.Sivaramakrishna,
SAKTI,
Rampachodavaram,
E.G.District, Andhra Pradesh

Sri Madhavji Gadgil - Namaste,

I met you during the FEVORD-K (Mr.Heremaths others) seminar on common lands in the month of January, 1989. In fact I was next to you while you presented your paper.

I draw your attention to the two affidvits here with enclosed. The forests department is of firm opinion that mango tree attains overmatured stage by the time it attains 120 cm girth and worth felling. Our contention is that this 120 cm criteria may be resonable (1?) for other species but not for mango trees which attain the girth of 500-600 Cms. So this 120 cm criteria is not applicable to mango trees. They should not be cut. The over mature stage of mango cannot be 120 cm and should be higher i.e. around 300-400 cm.

The case which is posted for final hearing in High Court of A.P.and likely to reach with in two months. We are in need of literature regarding criteria for determination of mature and over mature trees of different species particularly mango trees in the similar ecosystems of eastern ghats.

Though the court has given interim direction that fruit bearing mango trees should not felled, the forest department rules out the intnces of trees bearing fruit above 120 cm as stray cases and allowing the felling.

In your recent foundation lecture in SPWD you mentioned in the first page it self extensively regarding the felling of fruit bearing trees of mangoes.

The reports such as Gadgil and Subhash Chandra (inprese) which may strenghten our case either published or unpublished are not with in our reach. Would you kindly send the relevant paras with your covering letter to enable us to submit the same in the High Court.

In case you are too busy to full fill this obligation I shall come over.

Yours Sincerely,

(P.SIVARAMAKRISHNA)

CENTRE FOR ECOLOGICAL SCIENCES
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE
BANGLORE - 560012

Date: 26th September, 1989

Prof.MADHAV GADGIL

Shri P.Sivaramakrishna
SAKTI,
Rampachodavaram,
E.G.District, Andhra Pradesh.

Dear Shri. Sivaramakrishna,

Your Ref: Letter dated 8.8.1989.

Please accept my sincere apologies. But we really do not have the type of information you need to make a legal case accessible to us. It would require a specific investigation to be carried out.

With kind regards,

Sincerely,

MADHAV GADGIL.

A.P.High Court ruled that the government of India permission is mandatory to fell the trees in the forest -

- much before the Supreme Court taken up the matter in T.N.Godavarman case.

Order in W.P.M.P. No.6021 of 1995,

Between:

SAKTI
Vs.
M/s. Godavari Plywoods, rep. by its Managing Director.

6th September, 1995

"By order dt. 15-3-95 passed in W.P.M.P.6021/95 this court granted interim direction to respondents 1 to 3 not to permit the felling of trees in the forests of Andhra Pradesh for non-forest purposes.

It appropriate to dispose of these M.Ps. with a direction to the 4th respondent to approach the competent authorities for the grant of necessary permission."

"There are 17 plywood industries operating at different places in the Western Ghats though, admittedly by the authorities, the raw materials available in the forests are not enough for even three plywood industries. What is shocking is the fact that the Government has been yielding to the industrial lobby. An order was passed on June 11, restricting allocation of fresh forest areas for existing plywood industries. But within a month another order was issued allowingwestern India plywood factory to extract wood from Kodagu forests for another five years."

H.G.Belgaumkar, Indian Express, Bangalore, July 6, 1987-Chaos in catchment areas – Save the Western Ghats, Published by Central Organising Committee of Save the Western Ghats-March, Bandora, Ponda, Goa.

The forest department imposed certain restrictions on bringing cane from the forests. It also levied some price for each headload of cane brought by caneworkers. This restriction created some hardship for traditional caneworkers.

But they were put to even more hardship when forest department suddenly imposed a total ban on cutting cane from nearby forests. The reason given by forest department for imposing such a ban ws that, the caneworkers hve over exploited the cane from forests and that cane is getting extinct. In order to regenerate the cenegrowth the government imposed the ban.

For a forest official and to an outsider this ban may seem a rational step to protect caneworkers’s interest in the long run. However, the caneworkers’s view is entirely different. Caneworkers do accept that cane reserves have dwindled in recent times. But they attribute this overexploitation to government’s forest policy.

The forest department has allowed plywood factories to enter these forests. These plywood factories have logged the area for decades. While logging they select big and tall trees. These trees helped the regeneration of cane and to spread in length on the trunks of these trees. Once the trees were felled the cane had no support to spread. Gain the plywood companies constructed huge roads in thick forest areas. While constructing these roads the caneroots were uprooted. This process of uprooting can has put a stop to regeneration process. Plywood extraction over the years has decreased the availability of minor forest produce like honey and herbal nuts. Plywood companies have extracted water retaining trees from Agumbe forests. This has contributed towards drying up of streams, affecting agriculture.

The plywood companies are mainly responsible for the extraction of cane from the forests. These 160 traditional cane working families have been pushed to a state of destitutes by plywood factories.

The State Government has banned cane extraction but it has not banned plywood extraction.

- Pandurang Hegde, Financial Express, July 11, 1987, From Plywood to Poverty - Save the Western Ghats, Published by Central Organising Committee of Save the Western Ghats-March, Bandora, Ponda, Goa.

MARKING AND FELLING RULES

- Forest Working Plan, East Godavari Dist

27.0 Marking should be done for retention and felling separately. It should be completed by February so that felling can be commenced from April onwards. Following rules should be followed while marking.

Healthy and vigorously growing fruit bearing and minor forest produce yielding trees like Mango, Tamarind, Karaka, Jack, Usiri, Jeelugu, in that order, will be retained unformly spread over the area.
Marking should be done strip-wise.
Only timber yielding trees need be marked for felling. It is enough it only one serial number is maintained for the whole coupe.
The marked timber trees should be entrered in Form-I recording girth at brith., height of clean hole, anticipated firewood in cum etc.
Along peronnial stream banks growth upto 20 mts width on either side should be retained.
A belt of natural growth to a width of 20 mts should also be returned along important metalled and black topped roads.
Pure patches of cane brakes and Bamboo growth of and over 0.4. hectares in extent shall be retained.

Forest working plan 1995- 2005, East Godavari