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Forest fire fear spurs FRI to cut old, drying trees
Worried over lack of rain and fearing ravaging forest fires in summers, the Forest Research Institute (FRI) here has decided to cut 68 dead and drying trees on its campus
Worried over lack of rain and fearing ravaging forest fires in summers, the Forest Research Institute (FRI) here has decided to cut 68 dead and drying trees on its campus.
“The dry spell continues in Uttarakhand and we are greatly worried about the old and dead trees that pose risk during the forest fire season. So, we will cut those trees that were marked in 2014 for the safety of other trees,” FRI director Savita told Hindustan Times.
The forest fire season officially starts from February 15. Experts say the dry spell would bring early summer and wildfires could be worse.
Between February and June this year, about 800 wildfire incidents damaged over 1,200 hectare forest cover in Uttarakhand. The forest divisions of Bageshwar, Dehradun and Tehri reported the maximum fire incidents.
The FRI did not cut the marked trees in the two years due to lack of funds. But the climatic conditions have now prompted the institute management to chop them.
“We couldn’t get funds from the Centre; so, we will use the funds saved from other researches for this task,” Savita said, adding that the process of eliminating old and drying trees is called silviculture, a scientific management of forests.
The marking of ‘old, diseased, drying and decaying trees’ -- called ‘salvage marking’ -- is undertaken every 2 years. The director said the marking began in the institute in 2012 and a final list of 68 trees was prepared in 2015.
The Uttarakand Forest Development Corporation (UDFC) takes up the marking exercise on an annual basis in reserve forests, Savita said.
FRI and its research centres are administered by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education that comes under the union ministry of environment, forests and climate change.
