Letters

Captive cures

I would be surprised if this paper gets published in Down To Earth. My views are diagonally opposite to those espoused by the journal.

Karnataka was the first state to advocate the idea of allocating degraded and barren areas to industries for raising captive plantations in 1978. The industries, cushioned by committed supplies at low prices, had not responded.

In 198 1, the Karnataka State Forest Act was amended to empower the government to revise the rates of supply of raw materials: the rates were enhanced by over 1,000 per cent. Even then, the response was lukewarm. The Act was amended once again to free the government of its commitment. In response to this, a number of plywood, paper and rayon industries came forward for raising captive plantations through joint sector companies.

The government settled for a joint sector company with a rayon mill. With this began a kurukshethra war. Many NGOS, belatedly in the race against social forestry and eucalyptus, found this a godsend for their survival. They fought it on behalf of the poor who would be denied the degraded area, though the concerned poor may have preferred the alternative of likely employment in the programme and better availability of firewood from the prunings and thinnings. The central and the state governments had to back out in the face of a blitzkrieg of publicity against the programme.

However, one project - born of the same concept - which had escaped the attention of the NGOS, survived. The Mysore Paper Mills, a governmentowned company, was offered 30,000 ha of degraded forests under the line terms and conditions as offered to the joint sector undertakings. Today, in place of the 30,000 ha. of degraded land, there are lush forests. Black buck, spotted dear and panther, previously rare in the region, are back.

The local villagers are securing around 1,50,000 headloads of firewood from lops and tops from the worked area free of charge each year. Around 12,000 tonnes of small timber and firewood, constituting 12.5 per cent of the production, is also made available to the locals at government-prescribed rates.

Are we in agreement upon the fact that denuded areas should be afforested? With a deficit of 245 million cubic metres of firewood and of 15 million cubic metres of timber and industrial raw material, are we in a position to prevent further degradation? On the other hand, can we afford the loss of 6,000 million tonnes of soil every year, the recurrent floods and deficient recharge of soil moisture, the victims of which are, inevitably, the unsuspecting poor people?

With 80 million ha of degraded land to be afforested, we are fighting over who should do it. What is the requirement of our industries? A mere 1.5 million ha. Again, how do we identify firewood? Firewood is what we can afford to burn. It would be foolish to talk of raising firewood plantations in the vicinity of cities. Firewood, particularly for those who cannot pay for it, can only be from lops and tops, prunings and bark constituting about 30 to 40 per cent of the total output of plantations raised for other purposes.

All individuals willing and interested should be involved in the programme for afforestation. While involving them thus, incentives to benefit the poor - by making them part- ners in the enterprise - need to be encouraged. Apart from employment, free firewood and a proportion of du produce at concessional rates, we I should make them shareholders in th enterprise and let them secure 15 or I per cent of the profits as their due. Ef this works out, the only likely victirm are to be the NGos. But then they can move onto other subjects which are m concern to the poor. ...

CSE campaigner Suprrya Akerkar replies

We are surprised that an eminent ex forest bureaucrat like S Shyara Sunder is taking a position which is so similar to that of industry, totally negating social and environmental concerns. We oppose captive plantations on several grounds which have been published in detail.

The Mysore Paper Mills has not raised fodder and fuelwood species on its stipulated 10 percent captive planta tion area. Fuelwood supply (available only on harvesting of eucalyptus) is erratic and uncertain. Shyam Sunder also derides NGOS involved in this car paign, but are people like the economist C H Hanumanth Rao, agricuku scientist M S Swaminathan and administrator N C Saxena also a part of the NGO community? ...

Letters Letters