4400 Khair trees were illegally felled in Haryana’s wildlife sanctuaries, exposing a timber crime large enough to raise direct questions about forest protection, staff collusion and the state’s seriousness, as reported by Indian Express. Two inquiry reports confirmed the damage: 1,148 khair trees cut in Asarewali protected forest in Panchkula district, and more than 3,250 trees felled in Kalesar Wildlife Sanctuary in Yamunanagar district. These are not stray acts by a few men with axes. This is organised removal inside protected landscapes notified under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
The May report on Kalesar was prepared by nine officers, including Indian Forest Service and Haryana Forest Service members, assisted by 50 staffers. It found 1,473 trees recently felled, while another 1,780 had been cut over the past couple of years. Investigators also found stumps removed in some areas, suggesting attempts to hide the scale of the damage. 4400 Khair trees do not vanish from sanctuaries without roads, labour, buyers, storage, transport and silence. When timber mafias can remove evidence after learning of an impending probe, the system has already failed the forest.
4400 Khair trees Point To Commercial Greed
The March report on Asarewali described stump diameters from 16 to 50 cm, with 60 felled trees classified as very old. The felling was highly selective: 99.9 percent of the trees cut were khair. That points to commercial motive, not random village use. Fresh axe marks on standing trees showed the operation was ongoing when interrupted. Mechanised tools were used, and deliberate efforts were made to suppress evidence. Khair heartwood is boiled to make kattha, used in paan, traditional medicine and other markets. The timber is hard, durable and valuable. Protected forest became supply stock.
This is why 4400 Khair trees matter beyond Haryana. Forest loss is not only about canopy. It is about broken cover, disturbed habitat, weakened corridors, illegal access routes and the message sent to every timber syndicate watching enforcement. Haryana’s forest cover is already just 3.65 percent, barely above nothing for a state under intense pressure. Losing thousands of trees from sanctuaries is not an administrative embarrassment. It is ecological vandalism in a state that cannot afford even ordinary neglect, let alone organised extraction from protected land.
Staff Connivance Cannot Be Softened
On March 27, the additional chief secretary wrote to the chief wildlife warden that such large-scale illicit felling (4400 Khair trees is a lot!) could not have happened without the connivance of field staff. That sentence should define the case. The government held a woman IFS officer responsible for supervisory failure and pointed to lapses by two junior officers. FIRs were sought under the Wildlife Protection Act and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against officers and private individuals involved in felling, purchase, storage and disposal of khair wood. Yet sources said the senior officer had not been named in the FIR. Accountability cannot stop at convenient levels. Especially not when it comes down to 4400 Khair trees.
The forest department proposed amendments to the Indian Forest Act, 1927, seeking to raise the maximum jail term from six months to three years and fines from Rs 500 to Rs 2 lakh. Repeat offenders could face five years in prison and fines of Rs 5 lakh. That is necessary, because Rs 500 fines belong to another century. But after 4400 Khair trees are gone, stronger penalties are only half the answer. The other half is catching the officials who looked away, delayed action or helped timber move.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has meanwhile imposed an interim ban on tree cutting, including nearly 5,000 trees proposed for a national highway project, after a PIL. That intervention matters, but courts should not have to rescue forests from departments created to protect them. This case belongs in the larger story of timber greed, where sanctuaries, corridors and wildlife habitat are quietly cut into profit.
If Haryana cannot protect khair trees inside notified sanctuaries, it cannot claim to protect the wild lives dependent on what remains.
Source: Indian Express, India
Photo: Indian Express, India
