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  • 1 year ago
Significant depletion of the country's Forest Reserves is occurring due to the illegal squatting and quarrying.


State agencies are expressing serious concerns, revealing startling statistics.


Alicia Boucher has the details from the Public Accounts Committee.

Transcript
00:00A forest reserve is a protected area which has been set aside to preserve wildlife, plants
00:06and other elements within its ecosystem.
00:09While squatting has been a problem dating back from times immemorial, it is taking on
00:13a different dimension which, according to Chief Executive Officer of the Land Settlement
00:18Agency Hazar Hussain, is causing serious damage to this country's forest reserves as hundreds
00:24of new squatters erect structures annually.
00:27In particular now, there's a lot of movement of new structures in our forest reserves which
00:33is frightening.
00:35And if we look at the Valencia area, the long stretch reserves, there's a lot of new squatting
00:42taking place and destruction of our pristine forests.
00:46And that is something that is troubling to all of us.
00:50Commissioner of State Lands Paula Driggs believes it needs urgent attention before all of the
00:55forest reserves are depleted and she points out that squatting isn't the only issue.
01:01We don't have much time.
01:02I think we are out of time as a matter of fact.
01:05And there are two reasons mainly.
01:07Of course, yes, it's the clearing of the forest reserves, let us say, in the lower levels.
01:12Those have practically gone, either into residential squatting or quarrying.
01:22At least with the legal quarrying, we know that it will be rehabilitated later on.
01:27She indicates that while the Northern Range is private lands and as such does not fall
01:31under state lands, there are forest reserves there as well.
01:36But there's a problem.
01:37Some of them are not officially up to now designated as forest reserves.
01:42So I know Conservatory of Forests and myself have been working to de-reserve some of what
01:48has already been lost and formally reserve the forest reserves in the Northern Range.
01:55If you're wondering just how dire the situation is, Driggs has provided a jaw-dropping estimate
02:01of the affected reserves in the Northern Range, to which Public Accounts Committee Chairman
02:06Devindranath Tanku expresses concern.
02:09I can't give an exact figure at this point or percentage, but I will say it's about 50
02:15to 60% of those forest reserves in the northern part of the country, northern central part
02:20of the country.
02:23Thank you very much.
02:24That is extremely, extremely disturbing because I live in a constituency, I run a constituency
02:29that has flooding as a major, major factor and the deterioration of the hillsides will
02:35be an obvious factor in causing flooding.
02:39So that's a major concern.
02:41The LSA CEO has revealed that the agency is in the process of assessing the situation
02:47at a Valencian long-stretch forest reserve through a survey that is underway.
02:52It is being done through data collection underground as well as drone technology for imaging.
02:58So far we have surveyed approximately 4,000 acres in the particular area, Valencia Forest
03:05Reserve, and we have discovered over 5,000 structures.
03:09The surveyed area accounts for one-third of the entire reserve.
03:13The LSA is hoping to complete the survey of the other 8,000 acres in short order, following
03:19which it says the data can be submitted to the Public Accounts Committee.
03:24Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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