Mapping the Shrinking Forests in Nepal’s Terai Region Global Voices

DEFORESTATION FROM SPACE: Parsa’s Gadimai Partnership Forest in 2008 and 2021 on Google Earth Pro. The vegetation color is different because the images were taken in different seasons. Image via Nepali Times. Used with permission.

This article by Ramu Sapkota in collaboration with the Environmental Reporting Collective was first published in the Nepali Times. An edited and condensed version is republished below as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.

The Gadhimai Partnership Forest covers 4,150 hectares in Parsa district and is adjacent to a wildlife sanctuary bordering Chitwan National Park.

Half of the Gadimai forest in the Terai region consists of hardwood species such as sal, sisau and khayar which have high commercial value. Illegal logging by timber smugglers at the Indian border is now causing the jungle to thin out.

An on-site survey earlier this year confirmed what Google Earth Pro satellite images showed. We saw more than 30 tree stumps deep in the forest, with scars in the undergrowth showing where the trunks had been dragged away from the once healthy stands.

Comparison of satellite images of the forest in 2008 and 2021 shows significant loss of forest area, as well as a reduction in canopy cover over the past 13 years (pictured above). Chairman of the Gadimai Forest Management Committee Shahrum Gaddi explains some of the destruction:

Our staff has not been able to monitor the forest properly due to the presence of smugglers in the Sonbarsha and Koilabhar Bindabasini areas. Since the pandemic, we have seen an increase in illegal logging.

The annual report of Parsa’s Division Forest Office notes timber smuggling to India from Gadimai and two other community forests in the district.

Community forestry is considered Nepal’s greatest conservation success story and has been internationally acclaimed. It was the main reason that Nepal’s forest cover, now at 46 percent, doubled in 25 years. Communities have managed forests relatively better in the mountains, but in the Tarai it has been less successful due to the abundance of expensive hardwoods and the proximity of India.

Forest cover could be further undermined by an amendment to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1973 in Parliament in September 2024.

Global Land Analysis and Google Earth Pro images show that deforestation has taken place in the 13,512 hectares of the Sagarnath Forest Development Project in Mahottari, Sarlahi and Rautahat districts.

The project started in 1978 and involved planting fast-growing seedlings of sal, sisau and eucalyptus to increase timber production. However, much of the sal and khayar stands in these forests have already been cleared.

Used with permission.

Rajnikanth Jha, a resident of Sarlahi and a key member of the Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN), blames the collaboration between the Sagarnath Forest Development Project staff, government agencies, politicians and the “forest mafia”.

In March 2024, Manoj Tamang, chairman of the Brahmapur Community Forestry User Committee, was arrested on charges of smuggling sal logs. The Division Forest Office (DFO) also charged Tek Bahadur Basnet, Aashish Tamang and Heralu Pemba Tamang of the committee.

Another community forest in Mahottari’s Lalbandi, once just two kilometres from Jha’s home, has now retreated six kilometres due to encroachments and illegal logging. He says Nepal’s forest cover may have doubled, but the Eastern Tarai has lost half its area of ​​national forests.

“From the highway, the forest may look dense and lush, but as we go deeper into the forest, most of the trees have been stripped bare,” says Jha.

Forest researcher Nagendra Prasad Yadav estimated eight years ago that the Tarai jungles were being destroyed at a rate of 0.96 percent, equivalent to 1,756 hectares per year. Given the evidence on the ground, that rate has certainly increased.

In Parsa alone, it was estimated that over NPR 5 million (over USD 37,000) worth of illegal timber was being smuggled out every month. The DFO occasionally arrests smugglers and cases have been filed against 66 loggers, but this is the tip of the iceberg and the people caught are mainly the hired labourers.

According to the Madhes Province Forest Directorate, 931 cases of illegal logging were filed in court last year and 523 were arrested, mostly in Bara, Parsa and Rautahat districts, which have more forest cover than other eastern Tarai districts.

Global Forest Watch estimates that Nepal lost 4,570 hectares of “biologically important” dense forest between 2002 and 2023 due to encroachment and smuggling.

“There is insufficient protection, rangers and police to guard the national, community and partnership forests,” says Parsa-based journalist Ram Mandal. The reason is a lack of budget and often collusion between local politicians and their criminal cronies.

Shahrum Gaddi says he regularly receives death threats in the Gadimai forest after timber traders are caught and elected local government officials pressure him to release them.

Used with permission.

“The police are doing nothing while logging and smuggling are happening right under their noses, they only appear after we are attacked by smugglers and after all the timber has been brought across the border,” adds Gaddi, who says he has written to the CIAA, Hello Sarkar, DFOs and the Forest Ministry. There has been no response from any of them.

In 2021, timber traders injured four forest guards and looted their weapons during a fight in Bara’s Pipara, arresting them shortly after. Former FECOFUN chairperson Bharati Pathak says traffickers are lighting forest fires, stealing logs and poaching wildlife by pretending to put out forest fires. Pathak says:

There is an established but undetected network involved in illegal activities that has now smuggled millions of cubic meters of timber out of the forests.

This network takes the logs to sawmills near the Indian border at night and then transports the planks to Bihar. Smuggling gangs also use bicycles, tyre carts, tractors, vans and trucks loaded with sand to smuggle wood. In many cases, they even modify the vehicles to transport the logs. Sometimes, the logs are also transported to India by river.

Rajnikanth Jha of FECOFUN adds: “Infrastructure, settlement expansion and timber smuggling are destroying our trees. If this continues, there will be no forest left outside the national parks in the Tarai.”