Forest fires

THE raging fires in the forests of Uttarakhand have held the attention of the country for the past week. The fact, however, is these fires started in early February. Most of the damage had been done by the time the media, and therefore the Central Government, turned its attention to the disaster. Did we as a country fail in reading the calamity? Exactly how serious is this disaster? In historical perspective, not much. Around 2,000 hectares have been affected thus far in the state. In 1995, as much as 3,75,000-hectare area was scorched. In 2010, around 19,000 hectare of forests were damaged in Himachal Pradesh. But in the present context of depleted forest wealth in India, this is a major disaster, as each tree and bush counts.

Any prevention of future fires will depend on how well we understand the causes this time, and what we do with that knowledge. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has been quick to declare that the fires were man-made. There are others who blame timber and land mafia. But the minister needs to ensure a thorough investigation to establish the suspicion and bring about specific charges. What is indisputable, however, is the extra dry winter, followed by an early onset of summer that left the forest floors dry and inflammable. A combination of a particularly nasty El-Nino effect in 2015-16 and climate change may be blamed for that. Yes, humans are responsible for that too.

Whatever the causes, this should be a wake-up call for our priorities. Uttarakhand already has in place a system of receiving real-time satellite feedback on the forests, including fires, and passing it down to the tehsil level. The question remains what we do with this information. Some of the age-old fire prevention methods continue to be effective; it is a matter of deploying those with purpose. As many as 6,000 people were finally deployed to put out the fire. That could have come about earlier. India has a mere 21 per cent forest cover, and an equally devastated wildlife. We have reduced nature to an ‘unnaturally’ low level; letting fires run their natural course is now not an option.