Steps sought to check illegal felling of trees, timber smuggling

From a Correspondent

Haflong, Feb 28: Dijainon Hakmaosa, a prominent social activist of Dima Hasao, submitted a memorandum to the State Forest Minister on Tuesday in which he stated that wanton tree felling in the district, including bordering areas of Assam- galand, had triggered a serious threat to the  environment as well as to wildlife. Recently, he along with some like-minded people from Haflong, visited some saw mills in Langting and others areas where the trees were being cut and found large number of logs dumped everywhere, suspected to be illegally procured from Langting- Mupa forest reserve in the me of procuring from patta land. They also might have shown low grade timber in paper but practically good quality timber was being smuggled out. In this way, the Autonomous Council is being deprived of a large amount of revenue. For this reason also the council was not in a position to pay the salary of employees since a long time.

He also added that the advent of Chinese portable tree-felling machine in the district used by these people for smuggling timber was also another problem since these machines can cut a number of trees in a short period of time. Hakmaosa urged the State Forest Minister to intervene in this matter and to take steps to prevent smuggling of valuable timber.