By Kamal Panthi


BARDIYA, May 3 - Tree felling in Bardiya has intensified in the wake of the CPN-Maoist garnering the Forest ministerial portfolio with the Maoist local leadership clearing 163 hectors of the Rani Gaura Women's Community Forest in the district's Baniyabhar VDC-2.
The Maoists have set up some 2000 temporary camps for homeless squatters in the clearing at the Rani Gaura community forest which is situated in the mid-Bardiya National Park.

According to community forest chairperson Meena Pandey, an armed group calling itself Maoists had felled some 0.4 million large and small plants.

Pandey said that the group numbering in hundreds had arrived at the plantation on April 30 and began chopping plants that had been nurtured since the last 12 years.

Locals state that they feel unsafe after the Maoists began conducting war exercises at the clearing since the day the camps were put up.

Local Nare Budha alleged local Maoist leader Chakra Bahadur Chaudhary of being directly involved in the destruction of the forest.

"When we ask them not to cut the trees, they threaten us with our lives," Budha said.

The Forest User's Association has sharply criticized the tree felling.

Forest users demand Forest Minister's resignation

Meanwhile, the Middle Kareliya Forest Users Group, Baniyabhar has demanded the resignation of the Maoist Forest Minister Matrika Yadav.
The group's chairman Manoj Khatri said that since the Maoists were directly involved in the tree felling, the Maoist Minister for Forest and Soil Conversation did not have the moral rights to hold the post.

In this regards, the CPN-M district committee member and former district people's court judge Chandra Kant Dhakal said that the party would take harsh actions against anyone from the party found to be involved in the deforestation.

Meanwhile, on the eight party's authority, the Bardiya Park has handed a seven-day deadline for the squatters camping in the forest grounds to clear out.

kantipuronline.com