25 October 2004	Monday	10 Ramazan 1425

MANSEHRA, Oct 24: A show-cause notice has been served on the chairman of a Joint Forest Management Cooperative Society in the Jabbar area of the Seron Forest Division in Mansehra for extensive illegal cutting of immature trees on the pretext of disposing dry and wind-fallen trees.

An official of the forest department said here on Sunday that the JFMCS had axed 50 immature trees in the Jabbar forest and the volume of the timber extracted was about 5,000 cubic feet.

He said that the local price of Kail and Deodar timber ranged between Rs300 and Rs500 per cubic foot while it fetched a price of between Rs2,000 to Rs2,500 per cubic foot in Punjab and Karachi. The JFMCS management was accused of being involved in large scale cutting of green trees and smuggling of timber for the past two years in the Jabbar Devli area has been.

An official said that the forest officials had prepared lists over the past two years showing the damage done to the Jabbar-Devli forests by the JFMCS.

He said that the volume of timber exploited illegally by the JFMCS was 250,000 cubic feet but, so far, no action had been taken against the culprits.

The official said that the management of the Jabar JFMC was trying to get the inquiry officers transferred, adding that the NWFP secretary, forest department, was being pressurised through an MPA of the Muttahidda Majlis-i-Amal. The official informed that the process of registration of the JFMCS for the purpose of disposing the dry and wind-fallen trees has been deliberately made very simple by the forest department.

The official said that illegal tree cutting on a massive scale was only possible through registration of a JFMCS if a divisional forest officer and a forest owner join hands together, raising the likelihood of corruption and malpractices.

He said that previously, registration of the defunct Multipurpose Forest Cooperative Societies required the involvement of both the forest and the cooperative department and proper scrutiny and verification by the secretary of the forest department, chief conservator of forest, chairman of the Forest Development Corporation and the commissioner of the concerned division, leaving little chance for corruption and deviation from the rules and regulations.

He said that the manner in which the JFMCS were working had spoiled the basic spirit of cooperative system.