Charcoal industry cutting down first line of defence against cyclones

HYDERABAD: An organised campaign to clear all the vegetation i.e., trees and shrubs including mangrove clusters growing near coastline is feared to leave the local communities unprotected against the natural hazards such as storms, tsunamis, and coastal erosion, experts said on Tuesday. 

Local activists link this ongoing destruction to ever-increasing impoverishment and joblessness, which have forced people to start sawing down the first line of defence against the wrath of nature and sell it as firewood to earn a living. It’s happening because local natural resources are depleting at a cut-throat rate and the poor populace is left with no option other than ending the lives of trees to make ends meet.  There are hundreds of scattered makeshift charcoal units, burning the wood into coal day in day out all around the coastal areas of Sujawal and Thatta districts. This environmentally hazardous as well as illegal industry easily finds wood-cutters in the form of unemployed local youth desperate to earn a living for their families. 

But now the natural resources have depleted and people jumped on this lucrative source of income. Ironically there is no fresh data about the socio-economic status of local communities for research organizations to point out the long term impacts of this deforestation of coasts on the local communities and its flora and fauna. 

These charcoal dealers have set different prices of firewood, depending on its value. For example, they buy simple devi tree at Rs80-120 per mound, babul/kikar Rs300-400, Jaar / Khabar Rs200--250 per mound at fields; however, the cost of raw firewood in urban market is comparatively higher. Since the people have no idea, they do not care which tree they are cutting as they are in a hurry to collect firewood. According to researchers, Devi tree (Prosopis juliflora) has an environmental significance as the government in 1960s started sprinkling its seeds aerially in security-important zones. It was done for a purpose and now it is spread in all the saline and droughty areas. It is a fast growing shrub that flourishes in saline/droughty conditions. Unfortunately, no tree is safe from these greedy people, destroying the naturally protective shields.  "When there is no water to cultivate crops, no fish for livelihoods and no other source of employment, the cutting tree is only choice left for the locals," said Nooro Thahimor, an area activist. 

Thahimor, an eyewitness of the devastation of 1999 cyclone, in which he lost his close relatives and family friends, said no one was least concerned about saving these natural assets.  “These trees provided protection to the villages when cyclone 02A made landfall in the coastal areas of Sindh in May 1999. It still killed more than 400 people in parts of Badin and Sujawal districts,” Thahimor said adding imagine what might happen if there was no natural protection at all at the coastline. 

Since then, the coastal people frequently receive warning calls to stay safe when storms are developing in the sea --mostly during the months of April and May, which remind them a lot every year. Even then people are destroying natural shields without considering the fact that they are actually exposing their kith and kin to the lashing of nature. The situation can be understood from the fact that earlier villages were covered with tall and thick trees, with many common species of wildlife inhabiting them. 

There were flocks of partridges, both black and brown, hares, wild boars, pangolin, jackals and many more reptiles. But the shrinking habitat forced these species to find refuge in the other protected areas.  

Thahimor noted the representatives of government and institutions, mostly being powerful feudal lords or their relatives have no interest in saving the natural resources. 

“The reason is that they timber mafia pays these influential politicians to plunder the natural resources. Deprivation compels the poor to take up these anti-environment jobs for they have to feed their children,” he said.  Many villages are close to coastline, which receive high tides frequently and in summer season the frequency increases. The community people have designed maps to mark the villages that are vulnerable to cyclones.  Earlier, outsiders were purchasing wood but now mostly local people have dominate the lucrative business. There are potential markets in major cities, like Karachi, Hyderabad and others in the province. 

The trend of cutting trees may move to mangroves fast because these trees are being cleaned through not only traditional methods but also excavators, which leaving nothing behind. Then they will go after mangroves as they need money. 

Mangroves have shrunk from over 600,000 hectares a century earlier to barely 100,000 hectares – a figure that some experts believe is not correct. The rate of destruction of mangroves is faster than the plantation.

The government's forest department and other non-governmental organisations claim to have planted mangroves over hundreds of hectares every year.  On one side the Sindh government is promoting palm oil cultivation along the coastline to provide alternative source of income to local people, the tree mafia is busy doing the opposite.