Today, lets look at North east - the other area with big loss of green cover - 549 square km to be exact. And here the government has blamed two factors for the loss: biotic pressure and shifting cultivation in the region. Once again, I am not buying that. No, its not as though these don't exist. They do. What I say is that these are neither the 'only',nor the 'main' causes.
The real causes are, and I say this as a Northeasterner, combination of some state-backed or state-neglected wrong activities that include smuggling, allowing of industrial units to operate in forest areas, indiscriminate mining, and illegal logging.
Lets look at Meghalaya to see an example.
