The CGM, Piparwar Project,PO Bachara, Dt Ranchi, Bihar, 829 205 Fax: +91 6535 6605 Tel: (0635) 6611

N Choudhury, PO Piparwar Siding, CCL Piparwar Project, PO Bachra Dt Ranchi, Bihar, 829 205 Fax: +91 6535 6605

The Deputy Commissioner, Chatra District, Bihar, 825 401 India Tel: +91 6541 22217 (0) or 22278 (R). Fax +91 6541 22314.

The Manager, IRCON, 50 Hazaribag Rd, Ranchi 834 001 Tel +91 651 300 050/301 628 Fax +91 651 300 050/201 979(GPO)

IRCON INT, Palika Bhavan, Sector 13, RK Puram, New Delhi, 110 066 Tel: +91 11 688 936, 688 9391, 688 9275/6 Fax: 688 5165,687 3513

Shaligram Modi, V.I.P Towers, Block C, Flat #19 80 Gola Ghata, V.I.P Road, CALCUTTA 700 048 Phone 5214829

M/s Modi Construction & Co, Kanke Rd, Ranchi, 834 001 Tel: (0651) 305 788, 304 772

More on related issues can be had on: The Thousand Tigers Website at:http://www.web.net/~pcarter/hazaribagh

By Ranjit Dev Raj(copyright Inter Press Service)

LACHEN, India, May 21 (IPS) - The lush coniferous forests and brisk mountain streams that turn this remote valley in northeastern India into a picture perfect wonderland every summer will soon be a memory thanks to unchecked tree felling.

Although satellite pictures have shown a 40 percent loss of Sikkim's forest cover over the last decade, it took a row over turf between the army and the state forest department to expose a timber racket in which the army and local people have a share.

Northern Sikkim takes in the towering Kanchenjunga massif on one side and the picturesque twin valleys of Lachen and Lachung on the other and would have made for an idyllic setting but for the overwhelming presence of the Indian army.

Deployed after the bloody 1962 war with China, the army's continued presence is justified by Beijing's non-recognition of Sikkim as part of India and the need to safeguard a strategic area which overlooks the Tibetan plateau and has borders with Nepal and Bhutan.

But more than any warlike activity here, visitors to Lachen and Lachung are struck by row upon row of tree stumps where a few years ago stood luxurious stands of Walnut, Larch, Hemlock, Spruce, Silver Fir and a variety of coniferous species.

The local people are quick to blame the army for the devastation. Says Changba Lachenpa, a village headman: ''We have a legal right to fell marked trees for our own small needs but the army is taking large amounts of timber out of the state.''

Lachenpa, who spoke reluctantly and kept looking over his shoulder for uniformed men, said the villagers have for long been heavily dependent on the army for supplies of kerosene, petrol, sugar and transport in an area where civilian administration is nominal.

The army has in its 35-year presence in these areas left an indelible mark on ecologically fragile Sikkim, opening up the inaccessible valleys with a road network that facilitates the rapid movement of troops as well as timber poaching.

Officially, the army has blamed the Bhutiya villagers of Lachen and Lachung for the tree felling and even gone to the extent of carrying out raids and publicly displaying seized timber as proof.

In the Lachung valley, tree felling has indeed been extensive as a result of influential local politicians having managed to illegally transfer thousands of acres of this alpine wonderland into private hands in 1993.

Questions have been raised in the Indian Parliament about the transfers for logging and for the construction of a privately owned three-hectare tourist complex at Yakche village, adjoining a rhododendron sanctuary, by a former state forest minister.

However, last year, the forest department not only stopped an army truck laden with timber from Lachung at Chungthang, the point where the twin valleys meet, but even extracted a penalty of 1,200 dollars from the 112 Mountain Brigade for it.

A forest official told IPS, ''We managed to penalise the army in that case mainly because we were able to prove that the trees were felled from the Shingba Wildlife Sanctuary in Lachung where the army has no business to be in.''

Lachen and Lachung which lead into Tibet are out of bounds for foreigners and even Indian travellers from other states need a special 'inner line permit' for a treat of these charmed valleys especially in summer when their alpine meadows are in bloom.

In winter, the high altitude lakes and glacier-fed mountain streams of the twin valleys freeze solid and the evergreens are covered with sparkling snow, producing a 'Christmas card look.'

But there are increasingly fewer trees, the nearby Zemu glacier is receding and so indeed is Sikkim's snow line - all at a rate which ecologists say is already proving disastrous for the region downstream which includes nearby Bangladesh.

The last two years saw devastating glacier bursts and landslides which wreaked havoc in the valleys and even claimed the lives of 19 soldiers posted in the area. They may also have contributed to the increasing severity of floods in Bangladesh.

Army trucks usually do not heed stop signs at civilian checkposts and there are cases on record of forest guards having narrowly escaped being run down by army trucks carrying timber.

Forest officials do not deny the involvement of influential locals in tree-felling but say the army has no authority to stop it or seize timber from civilian areas.

''The army is overstepping limits in its anxiety to pass the blame on to the local people who have a right to fell marked timber and use it legitimately,'' said a forest official who may not be named under briefing rules.

The officials said even if local people were involved in the racket, timber cannot move out of Sikkim without army complicity since the army alone operates the heavy trucks capable of haulage in the rough mountain terrain and getting past checkposts.

As the conflict with the army and the local people grew the state government constituted, last year, a six-member team of high state officials and forest experts to investigate and report on the large-scale tree felling.

Finally submitted to the government six months ago, the report is yet to be made public but a copy made available to IPS clearly shows the involvement of both the army and influential locals possibly with the connivance of both parties.

A member of the team told IPS on condition of anonymity that there were clear signs of a well-organised timber racket going by the number of abandoned saw benches they discovered at several of the denuded sites.

''During our tour we held meetings with Brigadier Vinod Koser of the 112 Mountain Brigade and told him that the Forest Department is the sole custodian of the forests and that the army had no business seizing timber,'' the team member said.

The member said village headmen in the area had informed the team that seized timber was neither recorded nor handed over to the forest department but transported out of Sikkim as the personal property of army officers.

The team also formally complained to the army brigadier that various army installations and abandoned jerrycans, tins, roofing sheets and the road-building material carelessly strew about have ruined the alpine grassland.

''The grassland supports several rare and endangered animal species such as the blue sheep, the great Tibetan sheep, Tibetan antelope the Tibetan gazelle and the snow leopard,'' the member said.

But the team member acknowledged that the army's action seizing timber could have been the result of the forest department's failure to check felling. ''Presently, forest personnel have neither the equipment nor the motivation to stop poaching,'' the member observed.

''Ideally the sub-divisional office of the forest department at Chungthang should be reinforced with vehicles, adequate field staff, wireless equipment and firearms,'' the member said.

''The army and the local people should cooperate in protecting the forests rather than collude in denuding them as they now seem to be doing,'' the member added.

The report of the state government's committee has suggested the setting up of joint-checkposts by both the army and the forest department as the first step in stopping mutual accusations.

For now, the tree-felling continues and old timers in the villages are already lamenting on how green their valleys once were.

We hope to make this count an annual event and obtain long-term data on the abundance and status of Sarus Cranes.
Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information regarding either the Sarus Crane or the Crane Count.

K.S.Gopi Sundar
Research Fellow
Wildlife Institute of India
P.B.18, Chandrabani,
Dehradun - 248001.
(0135)-640112 to 115.

Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd. (KIOCL), has been mining for iron ore in the Kudremukh region of Chickamagalur district of Karnataka on the basis of mining lease No. 909 dated 25 July 1969, due to expire its 30 year lease period on 24 July 1999. The company was originally accorded 5218 hectares for the purpose, and surrendered about 613 hectares on 15 July 1972, thus leaving 4,605 hectares for use by the company as per the lease conditions. Upto 3,200 hectares of this land is forest land and KIOCL has till date broken up 2672 hectares comprising 1,452 hectares of forest land and 1,220 hectares of Revenue land for various purposes. Actual mining, however, has taken place on only 450 hectares of land. It can thus be observed that the company has been extremely wanton in its use of forestland.

KIOCL is mining in the core area of the Kudremukh National Park, an area generally characterised by "some dense and well preserved evergreen forests^Eand includes shola vegetation typical of the Western Ghats". Shola forests dominate in the region where mining takes place. The region has always been considered ecologically sensitive, and the forest has been protected from 1914 by a declaration of the Maharaja of Mysore. This protected status continued in the post-independence period, and the region was notified as a National Park in 1987.

When KIOCL approached the State Government for an extension of the aforementioned mining lease for a further period of 20 years based on a letter application on 04 June 1998, and not a detailed proposal as should have been the case, the opinion of the Chief Wildlife Warden was sought as per the procedure. The Chief Wildlife Warden of Karnataka State Forest Dept., Mr. S. K. Chakravarthy opposed the extension of the mining lease in his unofficial note No. DM-WL-CR-74/98-99 dated 17 March 1999 to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF). This was a note prepared following nine months of investigation into the compliance record of the company. Further, it voiced serious concerns of the Wildlife Division that if mining were to continue in the region, there would be disastrous consequences to wildlife and forests, especially in the Kudremukh National Park and the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary.

Given this strong and correct view of the Chief Wildlife Warden, the application of KIOCL should have been summarily rejected. Such action was demanded by law, and would have remained a testimony to the Karnataka State Forest Dept. as an institution duly complying with its role of protecting forests. Distressingly, this has not been the case.

Mr. Adappa, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests of the Karnataka State Forest Dept. (PCCF), in his letter No. A5 (B1) MNG. CR.66/91-92 dated 06 July 1999, has written to Mr. Nagaraja Shetty, recommending a temporary extension of mining lease to KIOCL for a period of two years. During which time he expressed the need for a comprehensive review of the environmental and ecological impacts due to mining by KIOCL in the region, and proposed the names of National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and the Wildlife Institute of India to conduct the same. Mr. Adappa also communicated the concerns of the Chief Wildlife Warden over extending the mining lease.

Forwarding the application to the Union Environment Ministry for approval, Mr. Nagaraja Shetty, Principal Secretary of the Karnataka Environment Department, endorsed Mr. Adappa's suggestion of a 2 year extension along with the need for studies by NEERI and WII. Rather curiously, however, he dropped all references to the concerns raised by Mr. Chakravarthy, Chief Wildlife Warden. Instead, a strange proposal of KIOCL was mentioned, that of providing Rs. 2 crores annually towards protection of Kudremukh National Park for 10 years!

It must be observed here that the permission of the Chief Wildlife Warden is fundamental for any clearance of non-forestry activities in national parks and sanctuaries per the Wildlife Act, and if such permission is granted it shall be only in advancing forest conservation measures. Mining can hardly be construed to be a conservation measure!

The record of KIOCL throughout the 30 year period they have been mining in the Kudremukh National Park has been abysmal both in terms of compliance of law and as well in undertaking environmental protection measures. While several are the orders, notifications and guidelines that the company has contemptuously violated, it would be significant to point out here that no action has ever been taken against the company by the Union and State Governments. Encouraged by such lackadaisical monitoring the company has gone ahead with more violations that are serious.

These include for instance, illegal forest felling, road building and drilling activities in preparation for mining within in the Nellibeedu area of the Kudremukh National Park over 310 hectares and causing the submergence of 340 hectares of shola forests by the illegal increase in height of the Lakya Tailings dam. The most recent serious violation by the company involves building roads in the Kachigehole valley in preparation for a second tailings storage/water supply dam.

Considering the manner in which the State Government has pushed the KIOCL application for extension of mining lease, it would be the least bit presumptuous to believe that this company benefits extraordinary considerations from authorities at various levels, very much in violation of the law and appropriate administrative conduct.

Contraries to what has transpired till now, the procedure to have been applied as per the rules should instead have been: