Bhubaneswar March 22 : India’s largest biosphere, Simlipal National Park in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, frequently witnesses forest fires during dry weather conditions, every year. The fires which generally go unnoticed due to a lack of media coverage, made the headlines this time around when the Princess of Mayurbhanj, Akshita M Bhanj Deo, took to microblogging platform Twitter and made an appeal to raise the issue.
The appeal garnered support from every corner of the country with environmentalists, activists coming up for the cause. This brought the wildfire to the notice of the Government as well.On March 2, 2021, Union Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar took cognisance of reports of the forest fire and tweeted that he had ordered officials to take immediate action and report to him.
Further, on March 5, 2021, Prakash Javdekar giving information on the forest fire tweeted, “The fire at Similipal forests is now under control & no loss of life has been reported due to the incident.
The Similipal forests are invaluable, not just for India but for the entire world. I appreciate the efforts of forest officials to contain the fire.”
The fire in the Simlipal forest has been raging since February, 2021. The last media update of the situation came on March 7, 2021, according to which the northern and southern parts of the tiger reserve had reported close to 300 fire points.
Various measures were taken to bring the fire under control like the creation of temporary fire lines through cleaning of leaf litter and ground flora and engagement of additional manpower as a fire watcher in addition to the existing protection squad.
To know the current status of the Simlipal forest, The Logical Indian got in touch with a local journalist, Manas Behera, who is based in Mayurbhanj. Describing the whole situation Manas said, “There is still fire raging in some of the south point of Simlipal forest and in the core area of the forest. People are not able to enter the core area but the fire is less than what it was earlier.”
“Forest department lacks a lot of gear and equipment which is needed in these types of situations. There is a need to use drones in this situation but the forest department is not using them. This situation needs a lot of staff which the department lacks right now. Many staff have not been paid till now. Regular payment boosts the confidence of staff which is lacking. The forest officials should collaborate with the local villagers but here no one is allowed to enter the core area of the forest as the officials fear that the real situation will get out if anyone will capture anything. There is a lack of staff in the department which is not good for Similipal as the fire is still raging.”
When asked about the claims being made by officials in which it is being claimed that everything is controlled, Manas told The Logical Indian, “Officials are not telling the real situation of the reserve forest. 15,000 trees have been destroyed in the reserve forest which is beside the national highway. The forest department office is just 2km away from the reserve forest despite they couldn’t control the fire. There is a lot of destruction in the core area but we are not able to see as no one is allowed to go there except the forest officials. They are not showing the real destruction, they are only telling that everything is under control.”
Talking on the issue of whether the wildlife has been affected or not Manas said, “I can’t say this with guarantee because this kind of record is maintained by the officials only. When the first fire broke up, at that time officials were intimated by the locals. Now they are saying that these fires took place because of locals. Anyone should think before saying these, why will the villagers put the forest on fire? They live near the forest. They earn and eat from the forest. There is a possibility that poachers might have done this.”