K’taka in dock for denotifying deemed forest land

Bengaluru: The state govt has found itself at the receiving end for going ahead with its decision to denotify deemed forest lands in 2022. Following its move to denotify a whopping 6.6 lakh hectares of deemed forest land across Karnataka including in and around Bengaluru, without prior permission from the Centre, the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEF&CC) has now sought a detailed report on the controversial decision and those responsible for it.Two decades ago, the state govt had estimated that close to 10 lakh hectares of area was deemed forest land. However, while filing an affidavit before the Supreme Court in 2022, the state disclosed that a total of 6.6 lakh hectares out of the 9.9 lakh hectares was denotified, revealing that the actual extent of deemed forest in Karnataka would be just 3.3 lakh hectares — almost one-third of what was initially estimated.Justifying its decision to denotify the land then, the state govt had also argued that almost 1.7 lakh hectares of the area did not meet the parameters of having 50 ‘mature’ trees with a girth of more than one metre. Further, more than 25,000 hectares of land was discovered to have identical survey numbers.Subsequently, then revenue minister R Ashoka, who is currently the leader of opposition in the state legislative assembly, had announced that the denotified 6.6 lakh hectares would be under the purview of the revenue department and the same would be leased out to ‘encroachers’ for 30 years besides being utilized for various infrastructure and developmental projects of the state govt as projects on these land would need not any clearance from the statutory authorities.The govt’s decision had drawn bitter criticism from conservation circles including retired forest officials who argued that the decision was largely in favour of land encroachers. Advocate and conservationist Veerendra Patil and Pape Gowda from Bengaluru had contested the decision in the Supreme Court.Patil said, “While the entire decision to denotify the deemed forest land was illegal, we have also sought the status of more than 3 lakh hectares of deemed forest area and details of forestry activities in those areas.”Taking note of the denotification decision, the regional office of the MoEF&CC in Bengaluru wrote to the additional chief secretary, forest, environment and ecology department, on Feb 6, seeking a detailed response on the entire decision.“It is alleged that the Govt of Karnataka has denotified deemed forest land measuring 6.6 lakh hectares without prior permission... It is requested to kindly examine the issues raised in the representation including those regarding the status of the said affidavit filed before the SC and orders if any... The factual report may be provided at the earliest to the ministry,” the letter said.Deemed forest areas are those that have not been declared formally as forests by the Centre or states but have all the characteristics of forests and tree cover. In Karnataka, these lands include Devara Kadu, Baane, Kanu forest, Kumki land, Amrith Mahal kaval, Jammabaane, Soppina Betta etc.Forest minister Eshwar Khandre has reportedly called a meeting of senior forest officials on Thursday at Vikasa Soudha.
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