AP uses drones to see the wood for the trees

With conventional forest department forces failing to curb the lucrative illegal trade in the red sanders tree (Pterocarpus Santalinus), the Andhra Pradesh government is all set to deploy drones to track the movements of smugglers in state’s Seshachalm forests.

In a first-of-its-kind experiment in the country, in a month or two, half a dozen drones will hover the 4800 sq-km stretch of forest spreading across Kadapa and Chittoor districts. On the other side of the country’s biggest biosphere lies Tamil Nadu, which Andhra officers allege, acts as a gateway into the forest for the smugglers.

As the red sanders fetch huge amounts in the international market, all those involved in the smuggling - from felling trees and transporting the logs by land and then to the Far East by sea - do not hesitate to carry out their activities despite the high risk of being killed in police “encounters” in the process.

According to sources in the department, the chief minister appointed two advisors, J Satyanarayana, an IT expert and KPC Gandhi, a forensic expert, to study and report to the government in a month’s time on the type of drones to be deployed. The sources said the state is planning to acquire six drones to begin with, each costing about ₹60 lakh.

“These drones will scan every inch for the huge Seshachalam forest area for human movements and send the images with accurate locations to the base camps set up in the two districts.

“Based on the information, special striking forces will launch their operation to nab the smugglers. About 100 base camps have already been set up along the rim of the forest, which is only home to the unique species of red sanders. As many as 42 striking-forces have been specially deployed for this,” the sources added.

Chief minister Naidu’s plans to mobilise about ₹2000 crore every year from the auctioning of the confiscated red sanders have gone haywire with global traders evincing little interest in buying from AP.

The only major buyer is Baba Ramdev. The international traders prefer to buy from smugglers as they get the trees at far cheaper rates than the rates quoted by the AP Forest department.

“Unless the smuggling is curbed, it would difficult to attract the Chinese and Japanese buyers into the legal trade. Hence the war on smuggling,” the source said. Naidu’s idea is to use the money for the construction of his new capital city Amaravati.

As part of these efforts, the government has amended the AP Forest Act, 1967 and made it effective three days ago. The new Act recognizes smuggling in red sanders as a cognizable offence with a harsh punishment of a 10-year imprisonment and ₹10 lakh penalty.

Even though the AP government has declared a war of sorts in Seshachalam forest area which led to the killing of 20 woodcutters employed in the felling of red sanders trees in an encounter in April 2015.

Despite this, the lucrative activity could hardly be checked. The reason - a ton of red sanders fetches an amount of ₹85 lakh to ₹1 crore in countries such as China, Japan and some other Far Eastern countries.

Even the woodcutters, mostly from Tamil Nadu, earn as much as ₹20,000 a month. Smugglers provide many other benefits to the families of woodcutters to woo them into venturing into the forest.

As there is little coordination between the Tamil Naidu and AP forest officials, the border between the two states has become porous allowing the smugglers to flourish.

On Friday, Naidu announced in the party’s Mahanadu being held at Tirupati that the confiscated properties of smugglers would be used to the welfare of the people in the state.