Greens in Karnataka have red flagged a draft notification by the State Forest Department seeking to exempt 11 species of trees from certain provisions governing the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969.
If finalised and approved, the 11 species will join the existing list of nearly 40 other species of trees that are exempted from any permission for being transported under rule 144 of Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969 and this could encourage large-scale tree felling.
Activist and former State Wildlife Board member Joseph Hoover suspects it could devastate vast tracts of tree cover in Uttara Kannada, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Shivamogga etc. ‘’According to an estimate at least 6 lakh trees could be harvested if the draft becomes a law and denude the tree cover in the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats’’, he added.
