By S Paul
The Dharali disaster and many like these are mother nature’s protest for the wanton vandalism that we, the humans, have started perpetrating on it. Some media felt that they have earned a great TRP by bringing out a wrong done a century or so ago by some British contractor who had mercilessly denuded the high-altitude area of its forest cover of Fir, Spruce, Pine and Oak, etc., in Harsil-Dharali area. But since then, we have seen 80 years of independence and 25 years of the forming of the state of Uttarakhand and no effort was made to rehabilitate this denudation.
We have been celebrating Harela with great pomp and show calling it a local tradition. Do we think that by planting a few Shisham, Neem, Aunla, Silver oak, Rudraksh, some fruit trees, bamboos, etc., in and around our habitats compensates for that loss? All this appears to be a sham.
All this effort and expense that we put in such an unplanned celebration does not restore the balance of nature that we upset by our lust for wealth. Instead, why haven’t our political leaders in consultation with the forest department, environmentalists and volunteers not gone to these denuded spots in the forests and planted the same trees which nature has already planned for that region and heights? Or is it too much to move out of our comfort zones? Had we done it since independence we would have saved ourselves from so many of these ‘calamities. By planting trees, offsetting nature’s design is to grossly upset our ecology. Example is the introduction of the Eucalyptus tree brought from Australia and the havoc it played with our aquifers.
Please let us know whether we planted Saal, Teak, Shisham and wild fruit trees in the portion in Mohand in Shivalik where the greatly touted elevated road has come up? And has the government kept any record of the trees planted and an audit done of their survival? Or has all that effort been just propaganda? Please government, we need these answers now.
