Hacking Trees Near Lakes May Lead To Less Rainfall In A Decade

Catchments lose their GREEN

Tansa/Bhatsanagar/Vaitarna: The delayed rains in catchment areas of lakes may have given a scare to Mumbaikars but there is a bigger danger waiting to unfold over the next few years in the same zone.
    According to officials, the catchment areas of the major lakes—Tansa, Modak Sagar, Bhatsa and Upper Vaitarna—are facing serious environmental degradation, putting a question mark over their ability to draw clouds and precipitation.
    Many industries and warehouses are coming up on either side of the Mumbai-Nashik Highway where these lakes are located. Besides, encroachers on forest land in the Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary and the timber mafia operating around Bhatsa and other areas of Shahapur and Khardi are destroying the green cover.
    "With the Mumbai Metropolitan Region growing, several companies have set up warehouses along the highway. This gives them quicker mobility. The entire belt was a green zone. But the state has been quietly changing the reservations and allowing industries by making it a development zone. In Tansa, outside the sanctuary area, there are industries instead of a buffer forest. This increasing urbanisation will affect streams and rivulets heading towards the catchment zone and will also affect water percolation. This will have a disastrous effect in a decade or two,'' said an officer of Tansa Sanctuary.
    A BMC official posted at the lakes said many warehouses had also sprung up along pipelines though rules state that constructions can be conducted only at a distance of 50 m.
    Apart from this, there are 1,320 tribal families from Jawhar, Mokhada and Talasari tehsils who have migrated to the 338 sq-km Tansa Sanctuary and encroached on forest land. They graze cattle and farm along the periphery of the lakes besides cutting down trees. Officials say there is soil erosion and the mud goes into the lakes when land is ploughed. Around 510.8 hectares of land was encroached, an official said.
    The fast-reducing green cover is a matter of concern
for the BMC's water works department, too. "We have started a joint programme with the forest department to maintain the greenery of this area,'' said deputy hydraulic engineer (operations) Pramod Guhe.
    Parts of the catchment area fall in the Tansa Sanctuary and the rest within Shahapur forest division. There is largescale cutting of trees around Bhatsa, apart from other catchment areas. An agriculturist at Bhatsa said: "The timber mafia has felled thousands of trees in the last few years.'' Teak-producing trees are a favourite of the mafia. Khair trees, used for gutkha production, are also on the hit-list.
    However, deputy conservator of forests, Shahapur division, A Ahmed said, "We can take action if the residents can pinpoint a particular case.''
    Yet another reason for the degradation of these lakes is illegal fishing in the lakes; some of the tribals use dynamites for fishing and in summer, they put pesticides in water puddles to kill fish.

DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN: Illegal structures, including warehouses and crematoriums, are spelling doom for the ecological system near the lakes

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