#ForestFire is the biggest issue in these days in
Himalayas. It’s really disheartening to see the destruction of the 'Lungs of
the Earth' in this way. But apart from sadness, there are few questions which
triggered in my mind which are obvious in anyone's mind. Is this the regular
forest fire or it happened only this year? If it is regular one, why not we are
taking any proactive actions against it?? What are the reasons behind it??? Who
are main culprits for it???? What is the solution for it?????
These 5 basic questions are
very normal questions which one should ask. Let me go through one by one.
This forest fire is not the new
phenomenon in Himalayas. It happens every year. But this time the season got
changed. It used to happen every year in May mid or last week and the June's
pre monsoon rains always kept it slower. But this is the odd year. Due to low
winter rains, forest got fire easily in April due to lack of moisture.
But the question arises how
this fire get started?? When you go into the deep, you will find the local
people behind it. But wait, don’t jump on the conclusion. Why they do so? They
love their forest. They don’t want to destroy it. So question is the same. How
and why? Why people did it? People want the feed for their cattle. They need
green grass but due to the pine needles, nothing can grow at the ground. The
pine forest is the curse for Himalayas. Their needles used to get down in April
to June and they cover the entire ground in a way where the water and sun light
doesn't reach to the ground. Subsequently there is no grass at ground and the
land also gets convert into acidic land due to the nature of pine. In fact these
needle uses to work like a fuel during fire as it has some oil content.
People use to burn the pine
needle to get green grass and it spread like anything. If someone has to live
with forest, they need their things from forest only. There were many talks for
'Fodder Lines' and all but nothing happened.
Why this forest fire occurs
nearby Pine Forest?? There are other forests too like, Oak forest, Rhododendron
forest etc, but nothing happen there. It means Pine is the main culprit. It
only takes the resources from us but why the forest department is so adamant
for Pine Forest. The answer is 'Lisa' (the gum of pine tree). Lisa is raw material
for paint industry. Paint is meant for urban areas. The Himalayas is paying for
these beautiful colors of urban drawing rooms generally.
The forest department use to
earn a lot of revenue through it. But is generating the revenue is the prime
objective of the department???
Why does not government change the
Pine with some fruit trees which will give the fruits to local people, Monkey,
Wild Bore etc. It will also strengthen the ecosystem as well as it will help to
reduce the forest fire things too. This is the long term process which will be
implemented in phase wise pattern.
What is the solution in short
term? We can work on Pine Needles. We can convert it into useful fuel as well.
But how?
We can connect Self Help Groups
(SHGs) in this work. They can buy the pine needles from local people or their
own group as Rs 1/kg. And can convert it into Fuel Brackets. These fuel
brackets can be sale to various hotels, dhabas as the substitute of the fire
wood. As pine needles have some oil content, it will be more energy efficient
for them. Machine can be provided by government, forest department for
compressing it which is not very costly.
I am not making a blind guess. It has been executed in Uttarakhand
only. It was implemented in Guptkashi area of Gharwal Himalayas, where the
machine was set up to make the fuel brackets. It was a very simple design which
is visible into the picture. There was a thrasher who uses to cut and
pressurize the pine needles and another thing was consolidator who uses to
consolidate the needles into a bracket. It is required a simple electricity
motor which can be work on solar energy too. The people used to buy the pine
needle @ 50 paisa per KG and use them to create the fire brackets. They use to
sell it to the Badrinath Kedarnath Mandir Samiti which use to use it into the
Yatra season as the substitute of fire wood.
Himalayas need such model to work upon. And it is not rocket
science. It can be implemented anywhere with a small effort. Few people use
pine needle for varmi-culture. They used pine needle as the bio mass and mix it
with cow dung and put some Kechuas into
it. It is very useful for the farming as organic fertilizers. You can see it
into the pictures. It is a good source of nutrients in horticulture.
We need to connect the local people with local problems into
entrepreneurial way and innovative techniques. It will help to generate the
local employment and revenues which will make them confident and self-reliant
as they were rather looking for some jobs into urban areas.
