The state’s forest department is staring at a grave threat of losing its grazing lands to encroachers. There is hectic political lobbying that the encroachers have begun to regularise thousands of acres of grazing land in the state.
A delegation of grazing land occupants from Vidarbha recently met a local MLA and demanded an early solution to the problem.
“Finding solution to the problem directly means handing over ownership of the land to the encroachers. This will create a huge problem of grazing in the region,” Kishor Rithe of Satpuda Foundation, an NGO working for forest conservation in central India, said.
Rithe stated that the state’s grazing policy, which was formed in 1967, has not been reviewed since. “There has been no grazing settlement since 1967, whereas cattle population in the state has grown by 10 times,” he added.
The encroachments on the grazing land have also put a strain on the forests of the state.
“Large scale grazing on forest land is threatening the forests in the state. There is no designated grazing land in Vidarbha and the entire grazing pressure is on reserved forests,” Rithe said. “If the encroachers succeed in their task to grab the 7,900 sq km of grazing land in Vidarbha, then the forest cover in the state will come under severe threat of illegal grazing.”
A senior forest department official supported Rithe’s claim that the state’s forests are under increasing danger. “Grazing has become a severe problem and we are under pressure to allow grazing on forest land as there is acute scarcity of fodder,” the official said.
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