Geoscience Reference
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led to a large-scale emigration of the populace towards the urban centres
of the country. The trend of declining agricultural land (-4.34%) is also due
to the said factor. Mass emigration can be checked through augmenting
employment that can be achieved through increased production of cash
crops and sustainable use of environmental services. Tremendous depletion
in forestlands of India has been noticed after independence as the forest
cover area decreased from about 21% in the 1940s to 19.7% in the 1990s.
When, India as a whole registered tremendous growth in population
including the Uttarakhand state, depletion of forestland was obvious.
Meanwhile, in the Kewer Gadhera sub-watershed, 69.72% increase in the
community forestlands was registered during 1971 to 2010. These are the
various driving forces, which manifested in increase of forestlands. The
increase under forest cover and decrease in net agricultural land shows that
people from the rural hilly areas have emigrated to the other parts of the
country for better living standards instead of extending their agricultural
fi eld. During the 1980s, the Government of Uttar Pradesh and Department of
Forest set up 'Soil Conservation Department' aimed to conserve soil through
launching plantation programs in the hilly areas. This program achieved
tremendous success. India's Forest Act of 1982 has also contributed for the
conservation of forest. Uttarakhand is a pioneer state, where the world
famous '
Chipko
Movement' against illegal felling of trees was started during
the 1980s. Reduced requirement of fi rewood and timber due to availability
of LPG for fuel and cement and bricks for construction of houses also
paved a way for increase in forest cover. Further, people's participation in
the plantation activity and conservation of forests with the help of forest
offi cials was signifi cant.
References
Eckholm, E. 1979. Planting for the Future: Forestry for Human Need (World Watch Paper 26).
World Watch Institute, Washington D.C., p. 73.
Hudson. 1995. Bridging the Gap between Communities and GIS Participatory 3-D Modeling,
India.
ICIMOD. 1996. Background Note for Regional Meeting of Experts on Development of Micro
Enterprises in Mountain Area 25-26 July, Unpublished Text.
Jodha, N.S. 1990. Mountain perspective and sustainability: a framework for development
strategies. Paper presented at International Symposium on Strategies for Sustainable
Mountain Agriculture, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development,
Kathmandu, Nepal.
Lillesand, T.M. and R.W. Kiefer. 1994. Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation. John Willey
& Sons, Inc., New York, p. 170.
Piyoosh Rautela, Rahul Rakshit, V.K. Jha, Rajesh Kumar Gupta and Ashish Munshi. 2002. GIS
and remote sensing-based study of the reservoir-induced land-use/land-cover changes in
the catchment of Tehri dam in Garhwal Himalaya,Uttarakhand (India). Current Science
83(3): 308-311.
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