Flora
GAURA DEVI’S JUNGLES OF UTTRAKHAND WITNESSING ASSASINATION OF GREEN TREES/ JAAGO UK
In Uttarakhand Himalayan State where internationally popular movements like Chipko Andolan took place years ago and its mother late Gaura Devi and the globally famous environmentalists Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunderlal Bahuguna were accorded several prestigious and coveted awards like Padma Shree, Padma Vibhushan and Megsaysay for arousing mobilisation worldwide to preserve and conserve trees and our environment, the same seventeen year old state is today in the grip of rampant illegal felling of fully grown up green trees considered to be the lungs and oxygen exhalers of the environment and the society. In a shocking revelation by the prominent New Portal of Uttarakhand namely ,”JAGO UTTARAKHAND,” and a pro active journalist Ashutosh Negi, the office bearers of the district levels of the ruling party have under the alleged influence of the minister concerned pressurised the forest officers and executed the arbitrary and illegal felling of dozens of trees in Lansedown area of Garhwal, Uttarakhand.
The story clearly reveals haw rampantly are some of the local office bearers of the party in power are cutting fully grown up green trees considered to be the society’s lungs given us oxygen for our survival. The Uttarakhand Jaago news channel has caught an officer of the forest department on camera reluctantly addmitting and revealing as to how the district level office bearer has under the guise of the high up’s and the minister of the department concerned allegedly political influenced and subsequently compelled the department to issue illegal orders for the large scale cutting of pine trees in the area called HATNIYA on the KOTDWAR PAURI RASHTRIYA RAJMARG.
THIS OPEN VIOLATION OF THE FOREST ACT is a clear illegal and arbitrary action against the honourable Supreme Court and NGT’s orders under which no tree above 1000 metres can be cut at any cost. As per the story of Jago Uttarakhand despite the NGT and Supreme Court’s orders forbidding tree cutting in the hills, hundreds of files for tree cuttings have been sanctioned by now and hundreds of trees also cutted illegally to the utter dismay, surprise and shock of the environment lovers.