HYDERABAD: Sindh forest & wildlife secretary Dr Badar Jamil Mendhro has allowed chief conservator (mangroves and rangelands) Riaz Ahmed Waghan to hold the additional charge of riverine and inland forests.

The secretary could not post an officer of BS-20 considering the fact that the posting /transfer of an officer of this grade is the domain of the provincial chief secretary. To justify the intended posting as a stopgap arrangement, the secretary has in the Dec 2 notification mentioned that “important court matters, pension cases as well as administrative matters are pending due to non availability of chief conservator”.

It is learnt that the secretary has not sought approval for this arrangement from the chief secretary.

Insiders claim that the CS Sindh might not have approved it in the wake of repeated Sindh High Court orders against ‘additional charge’, ‘stopgap arrangements’ and posting on ‘own pay scale’ (OPS) basis in provincial departments.

The post of chief conservator (riverine and inland forests) had been lying vacant for over a month. Ejaz Nizamani was posted here but the relevant order was withdrawn reportedly for want of approval from leadership of the ruling party.

Sindh forest department had until recently been engaged actively in the retrieval of riverine forestland across the province under SHC Sukkur bench’s directives. The operation, however, slowed down considerably after change of portfolios. Earlier, Syed Nasir Hussain Shah had been holding the forests portfolio which has now been given to Nawab Taimur Talpur. Many other officers have also been transferred/posted by forest secretary.

For the first time, lands of riverine forests are being demarcated under high court’s orders. It is being mutated in revenue records. Massive encroachments of lands of riverine forests are being gradually cleared through back-to-back operations by law enforcement agencies.

These encroachments were in the shape of agricultural activity over forestland and different other structures. The high court had called for clearing forestland of all agricultural activity and preserving them only for forestation purposes in line with the colonial era Forest Act 1927. It was in this backdrop that the court has also stayed implementation of the Sindh Sustainable Forest Management Policy 2019.

During the Musharraf era Forest Policy 2004-05, lands were doled out to influential landowners, mostly politicians, serving and retired law enforcers, bureaucrats etc.

Over the years, Sindh stood deprived of its otherwise rich forest cover. But it is learnt that now again forestlands are being brought under cultivation apparently with a tacit approval of forest department, bringing the entire exercise of retrieval of forestland to a naught.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2021