About 10 percent of the community forest, spread over an area of 260 hectares, is devoid of sal leaves.
What you should know
The sal trees in the Model Women's Community Forest in Tulsipur Sub-metropolitan City-3 of Dang look like they are dry. During the growing season, the sal trees look like they have been burned.
About 10 percent of the sal trees in the community forest, which is spread over an area of 260 hectares, are leafless.
Similarly, sal trees in some community forests of Purandhara and Dangisharan rural municipalities of Babai rural municipality also have a similar problem. The locals are worried as sal trees in the community forests here appear to be drying up like this. 'There was no such problem in previous years, but this year the sal trees seem to be drying up,' said Bir Bahadur BK, ward chairman of Tulsipur-3, 'This has worried us. We are trying to understand why this happened.'
Senior Forest Officer of the Division Forest Office, Dang, Bhakta Bahadur Chaudhary said that such an epidemic has been seen in the trees this year. 'Such an epidemic has been seen in the sal trees in the forests of Dang. The trees look like they have been burnt, and it is very difficult to control it,' he said.
According to senior forest officer Chaudhary, the problem is caused by moths eating leaves. He says that it also affects trees. 'The trees here seem to have fallen leaves like in Chait-Baishakh, and if it rains, they will grow,' he said, 'If this happens again and again, small trees will dry up, and even big trees will have a decrease in growth.'
Chaudhary said that a letter has been sent to the department to solve the epidemic. 'The district is not in a position to control it. We do not have such expertise, capacity, or resources,' he said, 'We have written a letter to the department, but there has been no response from there either.'
Chaudhary said that since a moth can produce about 300 flowers in a single day and it continues to grow day by day, it is also out of control. He said that there is a problem in control as even if the medicine is sprayed from a drone or helicopter, it will also affect other animals and birds and the surrounding human settlements. Senior forest officer Bhakta Bahadur Chaudhary said that this can be considered as an effect of climate change.
Earlier, a similar problem was seen in the forests of the Narayanpur area, but later it gradually disappeared, so he believes that this problem can also be eliminated. The district has two hundred thousand hectares of forest. Of these, the dense forest area is 192 thousand 682, while the Butyan area is 8 thousand 43. There are 369 community forests in the district, from which about 80 thousand households benefit. There are six religious forests spread over an area of 153 hectares. Similarly, there are 240 private forests spread over an area of 112 hectares. Currently, such a problem is seen in 15-20 community forests here.
