[Reader-list] statement re forest fires

[Nagraj Adve]

Friends,
A statement from India Climate Justice regarding the forest fires in
regions of the Himalayas is attached.
In solidariy,
Nagraj

Why are the Himalayan forests burning?

 A statement from India Climate Justice

14 May 2016

The India Climate Justice collective expresses its deep concern over
the extensive forest fires that have been devastating large tracts
across the western Himalayas. More than two thousand separate
incidents of fires have been reported from Uttarakhand and adjoining
Himachal Pradesh. Initial reports suggest that over 7,500 hectares –
4,500 thousand hectares in Himachal and about 3,200 hectares in
Uttarakhand – have been affected, well over double the area put out by
the central government’s MoEFCC. At least a dozen people have lost
their lives, probably more. Access to forest resources and livelihoods
seriously eroded, and people face respiratory and other health
hazards. Black carbon from these forest fires will over time settle on
mountain snow and glaciers, hastening their melting. Forest fires on
this scale are also devastating for birds, insects, mammals and a
range of other fauna, all of which form an integral part of the rich
biodiversity of these forests.

Multiple factors explain these forest fires. Commercial interests in
timber, which first penetrated these areas 150 years ago with the
colonial demand for railway sleepers, has intensified over the past
few decades, reflecting capitalism’s spreading ethic of profiting from
anything, and in any which way. Though fires are sometimes started by
local farmers with the objective of fertilizing the soil or helping
fresh grass grow, these fires are most commonly triggered by those
acting on behalf of timber contractors and real estate agents, often
in cahoots with functionaries of the Forest Department. Burning trees
also improves the flow of resin from chir/ pine trees, profitable for
the turpentine industry. This desire for quick profits from Nature
entices some small sections of the local communities, who are
exploited by commercial interests to undermine older societal
relations of communities with the forest commons.

The extensive plantation of chir pine worsens the situation. Whereas
pine trees are more fire-resistant, its pine needles on the forest
floor are more flammable. The Forest Department practice of so-called
‘controlled burning’ to remove forest floor litter often gets out of
hand and cause fires to spread far and wide. Regrettably, Forest
Departments have drastically reduced clearing and maintaining
fire-lines in the forests – artificial clearings in foliage dug to
contain fires – which need to be at least ten metres wide, thereby
enabling the fires to spread.

The situation is worsened by global warming. Average temperatures
across the Indian Himalayas have risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the
last 25 years, three times as much as India’s average and over three
times the world’s average rise. The rise in temperatures is even
higher in winters. According to the Himachal State Action Plan on
Climate Change, temperatures across the state have risen by 1.7-2.2
degrees Celsius since the 1970s. Maximum temperatures have also risen
across the Northwest Himalayas. This may actually result in
precipitation falling more as rain than snow, greater rainfall, and
generally greater humidity. But this winter, there was far less snow
and rain than usual. The forests have been dry since September 2015.
When conditions are dry, the situation is ripe for a disaster. The
forest floor has been bone dry with less rainfall, less meltwater to
percolate, and higher temperatures that prevail.

At this very time, let us not forget, 400 million people across
thirteen states of India are facing acute drought conditions. 2014 and
2015 have broken temperature records worldwide. Every single month in
2016 has broken temperature records by huge margins. The ongoing El
Nino worsens the situation but the background reason for these higher
temperatures is human-caused global warming. Like in every instance of
climate change in recent years in India – the Uttarakhand floods in
June 2013, Kashmir in 2014, Chennai in December 2015, yet again global
warming’s impacts have interlocked with our trajectory of
maldevelopment and the desire for reckless profits. Ordinary people
and other species pay the price.

India Climate Justice demands:
1.	A judicial enquiry, including independent experts, to probe the
causes and extent of damage caused by these forest fires, including
the number of those dead
2.	A longer-term regeneration to what might be ecologically more
appropriate vegetation in the western Himalayas
3.	The timber contractors and others guilty of organizing the arson be charged
4.	Given the likelihood of similar occurrences of widespread fires in
the future, a comprehensive mitigation and response strategy be
devised by the state and district administrations, after open public
consultations.

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Email: indiaclimatejustice at googlegroups.com
Mobile: 09434761915, 09213763756, 09910476553