Mindless development
The mindless and unplanned development that is taking place across the developing nations including India is bound to spell a huge disaster at any point of time. These disasters can be in the form of floods or any other natural calamity as the human interference with nature has touched an all time high.
What is disturbing is that the Union Environment Ministry has admitted that it gave permission for cutting of over 1 crore trees in the last five years for development works spread across the hilly regions.
The ministry has given permission to cut 1.09 crore trees for development purposes between 2014 and 2019. Out of the total, the highest number of trees (26.91 lakh) were uprooted in 2018-19.
Ironically, the data on trees destroyed in forest fires is not maintained by the ministry as well raising many a questions on how the government is planning to compensate the loss of green cover during forest fires or otherwise.
According to the ministry data, it gave permission to cut 23.3 lakh trees in 2014-15, 16.9 lakh in 2015-16, 17.01 lakh in 2016-17 and 25.5 lakh in 2017-18.
Though the government claims that a sum of Rs 237.07 crore has been released in the last four years to 12 states under the Green India Mission for afforestation in an area of 87113.86 hectares and providing alternative energy devices to 56,319 households.
However, a bold fact that has been emerging is that the winters in the Himalayas are getting warmer, which is increasing the risk of avalanches and floods in most of the regions.
The Himalayas, a massive 2,500-kilometre (1,553-mile) arc-shaped stretch of lofty mountains straddling across Pakistan, China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Any harsh interference with the ecology of this mountainous region will have very harsh repercussions of the people living along these areas.
So far, what has come to the fore is that the harsh depletion of green cover has resulted in winters getting warmer across the Himalayan regions.
The trends observed during winter (November-April) temperature and precipitation in the northwestern Himalayas and Karakoram from 1991 to 2015 shows that winters in the northwestern Himalayas have become warmer and wetter with less snowfall.
This warming has increased the risk of wet avalanches in the Indian Himalayas.The northwestern Himalayas have shown an average temperatures rise by 0.65 degrees Celsius since 1991. This is much higher than the global average increase of 0.40 degrees Celsius during the same period.
The increased temperature means that the glaciers will melt at a faster rate than expected and the phenomenon can spell disaster for human habitations and the environs alike. Most parts of India are witnessing increased floods and the frequency of floods is also increasing quite alarmingly.
This phenomenon cannot be ignored and some concrete and timely measures should be ensured to stop any future disasters to happen.
KV Network
