The Tarai’s shrinking forests

The Gadimai Partnership Forest extends 4,150 hectares in Parsa district bordering a nature reserve adjacent to Chitwan National Park. 

Half of Gadimai Forest is made up of hardwood species like sal, sisau and khayar that have high commercial value. Illegal logging by timber smugglers on the Indian border is now thinning the jungle.  

An on site investigation earlier this year confirmed what was seen on Google Earth Pro satellite images. We saw more than 30 tree stumps deep inside the forest with scars in the undergrowth showing where the logs had been dragged away from the once-healthy stands.  

Comparing satellite images of the forest in 2008 and 2021 show a significant loss of forest area as well as reduction in canopy cover in the last 13 years (pictured, above).

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“Our staff have not been able to adequately monitor the forest because of the presence of smugglers in the Sonbarsha and Koilabhar Bindabasini regions,” says Gadimai Forest Management Committee chair Shahrum Gaddi. “We have seen a rise in illegal logging since the pandemic.”  

The annual report of Parsa’s Division Forest Office cites smuggling of timber to India from Gadimai and two other community forests in the district. 

Community forestry is considered Nepal’s biggest conservation success story and is internationally acclaimed. It was the main reason Nepal’s forest cover which at present is 46% doubled in 25 years. Communities have managed forests relatively better in the mountains, but in the Tarai it has been less successful because of the abundance of expensive hardwood timber and proximity to India. 

Forest cover could be further undermined by an amendment of the 1973 National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act in Parliament this week.

Global Land Analysis and Google Earth Pro images show deforestation of the 13,512 hectares of Sagarnath Forest Development Project in Mahottari, Sarlahi and Rautahat districts.

The project began in 1978 and involved planting fast-growing saplings of sal, sisau, and eucalyptus to increase timber production, but much of the sal and khayar stands have been logged from within these forests.  

Sarlahi resident Rajnikanth Jha, who is a central member of the Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN) blames collusion between Sagarnath Forest Development Project staff, government agencies, politicians and the “forest mafia”. 

In March 2024, Brahmapur Community Forestry User Committee president Manoj Tamang was arrested on charges of smuggling sal logs. The Division Forest Office (DFO) also charged Tek Bahadur Basnet, Aashish Tamang and Heralu Pemba Tamang of the committee. 

Another community forest in Lalbandi of Mahottari, which was once just 2km from Jha’s house has now receded 6km away due to encroachment and illegal logging. He says that Nepal’s forest cover may have doubled, but the eastern Tarai has lost half the area of national forests. 

“From the highway the forest may look thick and lush, but if we go deeper into the forests most of the trees have been stripped bare,” says Jha.

Forest researcher Nagendra Prasad Yadav estimated eight years ago that the Tarai jungles were being destroyed at the rate of 0.96%, equal to 1,756 hectares per year. Given the evidence on the ground, that rate is sure to have increased. 

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In Parsa alone, one estimate said illegal timber worth over Rs5 million was smuggled out every month. The DFO does nab smugglers from time to time, and cases were filed against 66 loggers, but it is the tip of the iceberg and those caught are mainly the hired workers.

The Madhes Province Forest Directorate says 931 illegal logging cases were filed in the courts last year, and 523 were arrested – mostly in Bara, Parsa and Rautahat districts which have more forest cover than other eastern Tarai districts.

Global Forest Watch estimates Nepal lost 4,570 hectares of ‘biologically important’ dense forest between 2002 and 2023 due to encroachment and smuggling. 

“There is inadequate protection and not enough rangers and police to guard the national, community, and partnership forests,” says Parsa-based journalist Ram Mandal. The reason is lack of budget and often collusion between local politicians and their criminal cronies.

In Gadimai Forest, Shahrum Gaddi says he receives frequent death threats after timber smugglers are caught, and elected local government officials pressure him to release them. 

“The police do nothing while logging and smuggling is happening right under their noses, they only show up after we have been assaulted by smugglers and after all the timber has been taken across the border,” adds Gaddi, who says he has written to the CIAA, Hello Sarkar, DFOs, as well as the Ministry of Forests. There has been no response from any of them. 

In 2021, timber traffickers injured four forest staff and looted their weapons during a clash in Bara’s Pipara, and were arrested soon after. Former FECOFUN president Bharati Pathak says smugglers set off fires in forests, steal logs and poach wildlife, by pretending to put out wildfires.

“There is an established but under-the-radar network involved in illegal activities that must have smuggled millions of cubic feet of timber from the forests by now,” says Pathak.  

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This network takes the logs to sawmills near the Indian border under the cover of night, then transports the wood planks across to Bihar. Trafficking gangs also use bicycles, tyre carts, tractors, vans, and trucks full of sand to smuggle timber, even modifying the vehicles to fit the logs in many cases. Sometimes, the logs are also floated down river into India. 

Says Rajnikanth Jha of FECOFUN: “Infrastructure, expansion of settlements and timber smuggling are destroying our trees. If this continues there will be no forest left outside national parks in the Tarai.”   

This article was written in collaboration with The Environmental Reporting Collective.