Pros and Cons of Chir Pine in uttarakhand

Chir Pine( Pinus roxburghii) is the for the fist introduced by Britishers in the areas of uttarakhand and himachal Pradesh due to its quality wood which is used for constructing houses in the hills and in furniture-making.

The Forest Survey of India has found that chir has now taken over 16% of the total 71% forest area of Uttarakhand. Due to its enormous occupation of the territory, Chir Pine is causing the problems for the bio-diversity and other environmental related problems. 

(Note:-At present, There are only three states, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, in the country which produce Pine resin, the rest is imported from China and Indonesia.)

Pros:-

• Resin of the chir is used in varnishes, adhesives, dyeing, chemical industries and medicines.
• Due to its commercial and medical values, Resin of chir is being auctioned nationwide by Govt of Utterakhand, which is receiving annual income of Rs. 90 crore out of that auction.
• Villagers growing chirpine are being benefitted due to its annual returns.
• It is drought-tolerant and survives with less water.
• Leaves of the chir pine are being used as mats for animals, which are being affected by severe winter in the utterakhand. 
• Its trunk can be used as timber.

Cons:-

Cones of the Pine

• Chir pine is not edible for the both humans and wildlife. Epecially, wild life animals are suffering from the hunger due to vast presence of the chirpines, which spreads 16% of total forests of the utterakhand. 
• Due to its large presence, Chir pines are becoming the hurdle in maintaining the bio-diversity. Broad leafs in utterakhand, which is witnessing the vagaries of the climate, is much needed due to it ability to face the floods and in controlling the soil erosion but due to high presence of the chir pine is not allowing the broad lead presence.
• Resin of the chir is highly inflammable.
• Chir easily catches the fire. Thats what reason for the growing levels of the forest fires in recent years.
• Due to forest fires, damaged forest soil is not capable of preventing the either run-off or soil erosion, which automatically increases the devastating floods.
• the needles of Pine trees are acidic in nature which even turn the soil acidic, prohibiting any other green growth in the forest. Thats why Chir Pine doesnt allow any growth of plants or grass.
• The pine resin, exposed to the air, would easily harden and crystallise but it can be softened for use by heating. Thats why, many mafia people are setting afire for their commercial purposes.

To solve the problem, Govt shall takes steps to reduce the number of Chir Pines and move towards increasing the diversity of the region by reintroducing the local varieties, which are useful for feeding the hunger of wild-life, which reduces the man-animal conflict, for reducing the soil-erosion, forest fires and for increasing the flood-resistance in ecologically sensitive area.