Another Example Of The "Just Plant Trees!" Fallacy; Pine Monoculture In Nepal Erased Native Plants, Dried Up Springs
Three decades ago, the hills behind Nurpu Sherpa’s house were barren and ugly. Today, they are lush green with pine trees—a result of a massive tree plantation drive in 1991 that began on the hills of Anthali Village, as well as the barren mountainside around the nearby villages. “My grandfather and father were among the many locals from the villages who planted the pine trees,” said Sherpa. “The hills look much more beautiful today than they did when they were barren.”
But as the pine trees started to grow taller, the villagers began to notice something unexpected. “Plants like chutra, banmara and titepati, which grew in abundance in the hills, started dying and disappearing from the forests. Even grass on the forest floor started dying,” said Sherpa. For villagers, this was a big problem, as the plants and grass provided fodder for the livestock that many in the villages reared.
The changes weren’t just limited to inside the forests. For decades, a network of 10 springs located in the villages had ensured that villagers had plenty of water to drink, bathe, and feed their livestock. The springs were also an important source of water for birds and wild animals. “A few years into the pine plantation, we started noticing a depletion in water flow in all 10 springs. By 2010, eight of the springs had completely dried up; the remaining two disappeared after the 2015 earthquakes,” said Sherpa. “Now the water is not even enough for human use, let alone livestock and wild animals. We have never had to face such levels of water scarcity.”
For many years, the villagers remained unaware of what was behind the changes in the village’s natural ecosystem. “Then we learned from government forest officials that pine trees deplete groundwater levels and inhibit the growth of other vegetation. Everything that was happening in our villages started to make sense,” said Sherpa. “It is these trees that are making our lives so difficult.” The government didn’t just plant pine trees around the barren hills of Anthali, Baldung, and Dhanpal, in Sindhupalchok District; it did the same across the country. Infact, pine was the most abundant species the government planted in the mid-hills when it started its nation-wide afforestation drive in the 80s. But as these pine trees began to mature, their environmental impacts began to unravel.
EDIT
https://kathmandupost.com/climate-environment/2019/12/21/we-have-too-many-pines-and-it-s-not-a-good-thing
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