Proposed Amendment to Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976

Maj.Gen.(Rtd.) S.G. Vombatkere, President, MGP, in a letter addressed to the District Forest Officer, Mysore

Acknowledging the importance of trees to mankind and realizing the fact that unless tree felling is regulated, our green cover may disappear through greed and ignorance, the Government of Karnataka enacted the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976, which made permission from the Forest Department mandatory for felling trees. Anyone (including officials of government bodies) is subject to criminal prosecution for felling a tree without the required permission. The KPT Act put a brake on tree felling and helped protect our green cover.

In the original Act, there were no exemptions from this restriction. But in 1977, two species of trees, Casuarina and Hopea Wightiana were exempted and again in 1987, nine more species, including coconut, eucalyptus, silver oak, subabul, etc were added to the list of exemptions. In 1998, exemption from this restriction was given to rubber and tea plantation owners for all species of trees.

Now, the government is considering an amendment to the KPT Act which would add 30 more species (including all the common trees such as mango, jackfruit, lemon, guava, neem, peepul, banyan, etc.) to the list of exemptions. This revision would make the KPT Act essentially useless.

Most of the tree fellings are impulsive moves, without much thought given to the long-term consequences. People cut trees because they block their view or because they shed leaves on their yard, without thinking about the shade they give and the cooling effect they provide. Government bodies cut trees on narrow footpaths to widen roads, forgetting that without footpaths, pedestrians will walk on the roads, thus defeating the very purpose of road widening. The condition that tree felling needs permission from the forest department has severely reduced such impulsive and ill-considered tree fellings.

Right now, the Forest Department can insist on replacement plantings of saplings  as a precondition for permission to cut existing trees. But if no permission is needed to cut any tree, the Department can not insist on replacement plantings, resulting in net loss of green cover which the Department is mandated to protect and increase.

Mysore Grahakara Parishat is an NGO with 702 members engaged in creating civic and environmental awareness.We demand that the proposed amendment to the Trees Act be scrapped.