At one point of time forest products contributed a whole lot to the state’s economy. But owing to both governmental neglect as well as official incompetence which couldn’t regulate and manage forestry on scientific lines, the entire activity of lumbering was closed down. Now as population continued to grow and so did the demand for more houses and hence more timber, the Forest department and its subsidiaries failed to live up to this demand, which automatically gave rise to a culture of loot in the form of timber smuggling which continues without any respite. The National Forest Policy recommends a forest cover of at least one third of the total geographical area with 20% of plains and 66% for hilly areas. Though J&K is above the national average of 24.47% but falls short of the recommended norm for hilly areas. In hilly areas, forest cover started vanishing in mid-90’s as timber smuggling was at its peak. Even today, particularly in south Kashmir’s hilly areas, one could see huge vacant patches in mid forests where once used to be thousands of trees. Though much is talked about afforestation but most of times it is just for photo ops. Had there been a scientific forest policy in place, somebody would have bothered to question why has the Forest department itself grown into a sort of white elephant, which instead of contributing to the state’s economy is only draining it like a parasite. As of now hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of construction-grade (A-grade) timber is rotting in various official depots and several times more is rotting inside the forests, but is there anybody who is bothered about it. While the common people are thirsting for timber, the inertia-ridden Forest department is doing nothing to supply it to them. It defies common sense that the department is letting the timber to rot but is not selling the same to the needy which would not only have contributed big revenue to the state exchequer but would have also brought down the demand for timber, thus discouraging the timber smuggling in turn.
Another worrisome factor our forests and particularly their management is tapping the vast potential of what is in official jargon called “minor forest products” or MFP. This MFP which includes hundreds of herbs and medicinal plants are a huge resource just waiting proper exploitation. This is not to say that these are not exploited – certainly are, but in the most disorganized and shady way. Here again this huge resource worth millions has been left to either rot in the forests or has been given for virtual peanuts to a few people who are in this trade. So far nothing worthwhile has been done to tap this huge wealth, and one is hard at understanding why has there been a deliberate neglect of this important resource. At a time when economics seems to have become a political buzzword for the government, one is really hard at understanding why is forest wealth — which if managed properly has a huge potential to draw this state from many of its perennial economic ills – not been accorded the kind of importance it merits.
