Shimla, October 28:
After disturbing visuals of hundreds of logs drifting down Himalayan rivers went viral, the Himachal Pradesh government has told the Supreme Court that these were not signs of rampant tree felling — but the aftermath of nature’s own destruction during the monsoon.
Responding to the court’s notice on the matter, the state said the floating timber seen in the Ravi and other rivers was mainly driftwood — uprooted or dead trees swept away by flash floods and cloudbursts in high-altitude areas like Chamba, Kullu and parts of Shimla districts.
Officials explained that steep mountain slopes, combined with intense rainfall, often dislodge trees and carry them into river channels.
“There’s no evidence of any organised timber mafia behind this,” the state said in its affidavit, arguing that these incidents were “natural outcomes of heavy monsoon flows” rather than illegal logging.
However, the Supreme Court has taken a serious view of the visuals that surfaced earlier this year — showing massive piles of wood floating downstream.
The bench observed that the scale of logs seen “raises suspicion of human interference” and sought detailed clarification from the Centre and the states of Himachal and Uttarakhand.
Admitting that some logs had clean-cut ends, the state government said such wood may have come from old deposits, stockyards, or road-clearing works, and that investigations were underway to verify their source.
Environmental experts, however, remain skeptical. “Driftwood happens, but not at this scale,” said a senior ecologist from Dharamshala. “Such large quantities suggest both natural and man-made causes at play.”
The government has assured the court that joint forest and disaster management teams are tracing the origin of the logs and monitoring vulnerable catchments ahead of the next monsoon.
It also promised stricter patrolling and audits of forest depots to rule out any illegal movement of timber.
The case, which began after the Chief Justice took suo motu cognisance of viral videos, has once again highlighted the fragile balance between natural disasters and human negligence in the Himalayan states.
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