IWN Daily Digest — Tuesday, 29 September 2026
Felling has begun in Dindori, Madhya Pradesh, with about 2,000 of roughly 146,000 sal borer-affected trees down so far and a retired principal chief conservator of forests asking who independently assessed the need to cut them.
As reported by Down To Earth:
“Felling has begun in Madhya Pradesh’s Dindori forest division after permission was granted to cut nearly 150,000 sal trees affected by the sal borer insect. Bharti Thackeray, Divisional Forest Officer, Production, told Down To Earth (DTE) that about 2,000 trees had been felled so far out of the approximately 146,000 sal borer-affected trees identified for felling. She said fewer trees had been cut so far because of rain.”
The divisional forest officer said the plan is to finish felling the affected sal trees by March next year, with a temporary depot set up near Gadharsai to hold the timber. IWN reported the Union government’s approval for the cuts on 20 September.
A retired principal chief conservator of forests in Madhya Pradesh, who is also a former director of the Indian Institute of Forest Management, has questioned the decision. He told Down To Earth that in the 1990s he refused to sign a central government committee report recommending the felling of sal borer-affected trees, and that this time the basis for the decision is the most important question.
He said that when teams were formed earlier to examine the issue, experts and stakeholders were consulted, and that a similar team should have been formed now, with an independent assessment carried out before permission was granted. If trees are to be cut, he said, it should be clear who conducted that assessment, who visited the site, what they observed and what they found, and the process and findings should be made public.
Forest Layers
The former forest chief also asked why the infestation is so concentrated in one patch, and said sal forests normally grow in three to five layers, from shrubs at the bottom to tall trees at the top. In the affected area, he said, large trees stand over lower layers that are almost clear, which he put down partly to frequent fires and overgrazing.
A forest weakened from the bottom up absorbs less water and holds less soil, he said, which feeds erosion. “Simply cutting trees after the outbreak has escalated is not the solution,” he said, and he added that the forest has been gradually turning into an almost pure sal forest, whereas a sal forest usually contains several other species whose numbers have declined over time.
Sources: Down To Earth
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