Bad example

In court, Vedanta's lawyers repeatedly said they would emulate the "successful' land reforestation undertaken by NALCO, in its mining area on the Panchpat Mali hill range. The company has received several awards for its contributions in the field of afforestation and wasteland development.

But environmentalists say its reclamation effort isn't worth emulation. A visit to the mining site in Damanjodi revealed why. The company has in some places set up the stipulated 15-metre periphery "green' barrier to stem soil and dust erosion, but the wall of trees doesn't flank the entire mining area yet.

"Most trees planted are foreign species, mainly chakunda, an oil seed plant, some acacia and eucalyptus. These don't allow other local plants to grow beside them,' says William Stanley of the NGO Integrated Rural Development of Weaker Sections of India, who has studied the impacts of mining.

"There's no flowering that honeybees can draw nectar from. And from the point of the community's need of fuel wood, you can't go cut trees in NALCO area or use any of the new forest resources.'

But K S Sreedhar, NALCO's general manager, mines, says, "Initially the objective was to provide greenery, so we planted acacia and eucalyptus. When we found they were not useful to the people we planted local fruit-bearing trees and ones that would give firewood