CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has protected its forests cover well, with only 127 hectares diverted for developmental projects in the last five years.
Only Meghalaya, which diverted 34 hectares of land during the same period, is below Tamil Nadu in the diversion scale, said Kirti Vardhan Singh, Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change. He was responding to a query from DMK MP TR Baalu in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
In five years, a whopping 95,725 hectares of notified forest area across the country has been diverted for 881 development projects. During the last fiscal alone, 421 development projects were approved in the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, highlighting the scale of degradation of forest land across the country.
The most cases of diversion were in Madhya Pradesh (22,615 ha), followed by Odisha (13,622 ha), Arunachal Pradesh (8,745 ha) and Gujarat (7,403 ha).
In terms of number of proposals approved, Gujarat tops the list with 1,512 projects. The ecologically fragile states like Uttarakhand also saw 468 projects approved with 3,323 ha being diverted.
Ritwick Dutta, an environmental lawyer, told TNIE there are very few states that are resisting forest diversion.
“Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and, to some extent, Uttar Pradesh are doing well. Otherwise, there has been a rush of project approvals, involving forest diversion, submitted. The overall number will be much higher since the government data don’t reflect the proposed 13,000 ha of forest diversion for Great Nicobar township and area development project, which received stage-1 clearance.”
Tamil Nadu Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas R Reddy said, “Even if you calculate from 1980, the year when Wildlife (Protection) Act was enacted, the total forest diversion doesn’t exceed 5,000 hectares. The state always resisted mega projects requiring forest land.”
Meanwhile, under the flagship Green Tamil Nadu Mission, which was launched by Chief Minister MK Stalin, the state has been pushing to increase the tree and forest cover from the current 23.69% to 33%. Already, 2.8 crore trees have been planted and the target is 260 crore under the mission, forest officials said.
G Sundarrajan, convener, Poovulagin Nanbargal, another reason for low forest diversion in Tamil Nadu is public movements. “Public here are well-informed, unlike other states. Projects like Chennai-Salem expressway, neutrino observatory and Kattupalli port expansion were all halted due to public protests.”
