Deforestation
South Asia Needs To Act

By Khilendra Basnyat

GENERALLY, human actions and their influences cause deforestation. Some causes such as fire, disease and weather induced stress are natural, whereas more often they result from human activities such as land clearance for agriculture, overgrazing, over extraction of timber and logging practices.

Causes

In recent years, fire has caused serious damage to South Asia's forests. Fire problems are widespread in India, and other countries in this region. Fire is usually started by people who want to clear forest to use land for agriculture and other purposes.In most South Asian countries, deforestation is increasing because of the lack of clear comprehensive policies or programmes for the sustainable development of forest resources.Where deforestation occurs in an unplanned and wasteful manner, the economic loss may be substantial, especially from the loss of timber and other commercial purposes. Also, deforestation brings about severe hardships and social disruption for forest dwelling and forest dependent people.Deforestation can lead to major reductions in agricultural productivity. In addition, the situation of rivers and reservoirs has important negative implications for irrigation and hydropower.In sensitive areas, deforestation can lead to springs drying up and consequently deserts, which cause the loss of wildlife habitat. Some South Asian countries have lost 70 to 90 per cent of their wildlife heritage, and the population of wildlife is decreasing future.
Deforestation can cause various problems such as loss of soil fertility and reduced productivity and growth. Apart from these, it will cause decline in species richness, erosion of genetic diversity, decline in stock density as well as crown cover and reduced economic value of timber crops.
While it is simple to identify the effects of deforestation, the impacts of deforestation are subtle.
South Asia's population is increasing at alarming rate, which has propelled great clearance of forests of cultivation, fuel and for settlements. Consequently, the land is over exploited, leading to soil erosion, which has become a menace to food security in this region.

SAARC region has about 77 million hectares of tropical forests, of which the natural one is about 62 million hectares. The natural forests, which have 14.9 per cent of the total land area of this region, are degrading fast.

It has been estimated that South Asia lost 7.5 million hectares of natural forests during 1990-95. The loss between 1980-85 and 1990-95 was 2.2 million hectares.

During 1990-95 the average annual rate of deforestation in South Asia was estimated as 0.68 per cent per year. This was slightly lower than the decade average of 1980-90, which was estimated to be 0.78 per cent per annum.

In South Asia, Bangladesh and Pakistan have the highest rates of population growth. This will be evident from the fact that the rates of deforestation in Bangladesh and Pakistan are estimated as 2.90 per cent and 2.96 per cent respectively. These percentages are about four times higher than the South Asian average of 0.68 per cent. Also these two countries possess a low share of forests to the land area.

While the forest loss in Nepal and Sri Lanka was 1.08 per cent and 1.15 respectively per annum during 1990-95, the sale loss for India was 0.52 per cent during the same period.

Bhutan has the highest (55 per cent) share of forests to the total land area. The yearly deforestation rate during 1981-90 was 3.3 per cent. In India, the rate of loss of dry deciduous forests during the same period was 0.8 per cent.

The hill and mountain type of forests is 14.9 million hectares, constituting about 23 per cent of the total forest area. In Bhutan and Pakistan, such types of forests cover 79 per cent and 77 per cent of the total forest areas respectively.

In India, the extent of these types of forests is 8.9 million hectares or 17 per cent of the total forests area. In Nepal, these forests occupy about 23 million hectares, constituting about 47 per cent of the total forest area.

It has been found out that the loss of mountain type of forests is serious in Nepal and Pakistan.
In Pakistan the yearly rate of deforestation of this type of forest was estimated at 2.9 per cent during 1981-90.

It has been estimated that South Asia has 9.85 million hectares of evergreen forests, comparising 15.5 per cent of the total forest area. Such forest in India is about 8.2 million hectares or 16 per cent of the total national forest.

In Bangladesh, about 74 per cent of the forests are evergreen covering about 57 hectares of land. In this country, loss of such forests is serious. The annual rate of deforestation of such forests in this
country during 1981-90 was 3.6 per cent, which was six times higher than that of India. Considering the low share of forests to the total land area, such deforestation rate in Bangladesh is a matter of great concern.Nepal and Sri Lanka have 600 hectares and 247 hectares of evergreen forests. The rate of deforestation of these forests in these countries is also increasing every year.

In South Asia, the moist deciduous forests possess 14.8 per cent of the total forest area. About 25 per cent of Nepal and 35 per cent of Sri Lanka forests are of moist deciduous category.The loss of moist deciduous forests in Bangladesh and Pakistan is grave. This is testified by the fact that the annual rate of deforestation of this type of forest is estimated 2.1 per cent of Nepal and 3.1 per cent respectively.

Impact

In the past few decades, South Asia has lost significant proportion of forests. If deforestation continues, the ecology of South Asia will be damaged. Consequently, there will be a negative impact on the social and economic status of the people of this region. Therefore it has become urgent to check deforestation in this region.

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