MAHARASHTRA HAS lost 2,510 sq km forest area - five times the size of Mumbai since 1998.

The latest Forest Survey of India released two months ago showed that the state has lost 38 sq km forest between 2004 and 2005 and the rest between 2003 and 2004. "The reasons are commercial activities and deforestation by the state forest department itself," said Tejender Singh, regional director of Forest Survey of India.

The report claimed that the field verification revealed that the loss of the forest cover, particularly in the districts of Chandrapur, Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Gondia and Nagpur is mostly due to felling by Maharashtra Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd (MFDC).

The Corporation has now been told to re duce felling and submit a management plan to the Centre for every plantation plan.

"We have stopped felling but since then all teak plantations have been failures," said Jwala Prasad, MFDC managing director. Teak plantations require an open space to grow.

According to Singh, the replacement plantations had not grown to the proportions of forests and did not show in the satellite data plants have to grow to about 5 ft for the satellite to register them.

The plantation scheme was an eyewash as the forests have changed, said environmentalists. "You clear natural foliage and forests and plant eucalyptus trees, that certainly does not help. On the contrary it depletes groundwater,"

, said environmentalist Bittu Saigal.

The state now has 8,191 sq km of very dense forest and 20,193 sq km of moderately dense forest. "The felling activities have been re stricted and every plan has to be approved by the Centre," said Bimal Majumdar, principal chief conservator of forests.

Only two states have lost its forests faster than Maharashtra, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. "The problem is that the promised plantation, being done for over 15 years, was not showing in the satellite data," said Singh.

"There has been replantation which will show in three to five years. Due to good growth of green cover in areas such as Radhanagri, we have animals coming back, including tigers," said Majumdar.

After analysis of the data, it was found that the maximum damage to the forests was between 1998 and 2003. In the next two years till 2005, only 38 sq km forest was lost. "We have been able to arrest the loss of green cover. Now we need to completely stop it," Majumdar said.

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