NGT stops Corbett tiger safari work till panel submits tree felling report

The NGT Bench said that the Forest Survey of India report on the matter clearly acknowledges the illegality in cutting of trees

The NGT wants the report to include the steps required for restoration of environment. Photo: Special Arrangement

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Uttarakhand government not to proceed with the Pakhro tiger safari project inside the Corbett Tiger Reserve until the Central committee submits its final report on the alleged illegal cutting of trees inside the reserve for the project.

The NGT Bench consisting of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, Justice Sudhir Agarwal and professor A Senthil Vel (expert member) maintained that the Forest Survey of India (FSI) report on the matter clearly acknowledges the illegality in cutting of trees.

“Thus, accountability needs to be fixed for such violations and the damage to the environment restored, following due process of law. Accordingly, we constitute a three-member committee comprising the Director Generals of the Forest Department, Wildlife Department and Project Tiger to identify the violators and the steps required for restoration of environment,” the NGT said.

It further ordered the State government not to proceed with tiger safari project until the committee submits its report with specific recommendations that may be furnished to the Secretary of the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change within one month. The report should also include steps for further course of action in the matter, the green Bench ordered.

Earlier, Anoop Singh, Director General of Forest Survey of India, in his report to the NGT, had maintained that the area of sites where the trees were cut — as mentioned in the letter from the Uttarakhand government — has been calculated using the GPS survey done by the geographic information system (GIS) team of the FSI and Google Earth imagery.

“The number of trees observed per hectare from all the inventory plots when multiplied with the area figures of a particular site gives the number of estimated trees felled at that particular site. By adding the estimated trees at different sites, total estimated number of trees felled are arrived in the study area,” the FSI told the NGT.

It added that the standard error of estimates has come out to be 10.31 trees, which is within the acceptable limit. The standard error percentage has been calculated as 2.72%, which is quite low and acceptable.

“The area cleared is estimated as 16.21 ha. The trees estimated on this cleared area are 6,093 in number with a lower bound of 5,765 and upper bound of 6,421 with 95% confidence interval and 2.72% standard error,” stated the FSI report, which was earlier published by The Hindu.