New Delhi: Around 29,400 trees — spread across 150 acres of forests in the already mining-ravaged lands near Sandur in Karnataka’s Ballari district — stand to fall if the union environment ministry approves a new mining project, reported Deccan Herald.
Local activists note tree enumeration exercise
Local activists raised the alarm when they observed officials of Karnataka’s forest department beginning to enumerate individual trees last month, across 150 acres of forested land north of Sandur in Ballari district, specifically the Ramanadurga forest range, as per the report.
On June 6, DH reported that the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant Limited (VISL) have proposed to undertake mining in this area, and that this project has been cited as an “essential undertaking for the survival of the VISL” to the State Forest Department. The VISL, which produces pig iron and steel, is located in the town of Bhadravati in Shivamogga district in Karnataka and is a subsidiary of SAIL. According to The Hindu, the plant began incurring financial losses after the Supreme Court banned mining in Kudremukh in the mid 2000s. Later, SAIL took over the VISL.
Also read: The Vanishing: Over 3 Years, India’s Farmlands Have Lost More Than 5 Million Large Trees
According to the DH report, most of the trees that have been marked to be logged as part of the recent exercise are native tree species. Local activists, who have been following deforestation issues caused by mining in the area for 20 years, told DH that the development of a legal mine in this area would affect wildlife – including Asiatic sloth bears that dwell in the region – and affect the environment drastically.
Sandur, an already mine-ravaged land
While funds to restore Sandur’s forests are slowly coming in to compensate for mining-caused forest loss that has already occurred, it does not make any sense to lose any more standing forests for this, local activists told DH.
According to the DH report, the Karnataka Mining Environment Restoration Corporation recently approved four eco-restoration projects (including planting around 2 lakh saplings in south and north Sandur) amounting to Rs 135.71 crore.
Also read: Explained: The Great Indian Tree Cover Loss
According to a 2019 news report by DH, the proposal to divert forestland for mines in Sandur — which was on the backburner since 2014 — was revived in 2019 after the Bureau of Mines approved it. The National Mineral Development Corporation’s (NMDC) proposal aimed to mine around 600 lakh tonnes of iron ore spread across 393 acres in Sandur, the report added. As per the proposal, the mines were to generate at least a Rs 9,000 crore profit over the next 20 years. This was at a time when around 800 acres of land was already being mined in the area.
State forest officials had noted in their reports then that mining should not be permitted in the area as it would not only destroy forests but also cause soil erosion. It could also possibly affect a site of archaeological importance: the proposed mining site lies just within a kilometer of the eighth century — Kumaraswamy Temple.
However, as per the latest DH report, the state forest department has recommended that the project be cleared by the union environment ministry.
This is the second such report in recent times that has made it to the news that involves felling trees in this magnitude. A similar number of trees (around 33,000) are to be felled in forested areas in three districts of Uttar Pradesh to make way for a two-lane road for pilgrims.
