Environmental Science

18 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

3. Paper Board and Newsprint

With the rapidly increasing population growth our per capita consumption of paper is
increasing from 2 kg to 4.5 kg per year. Bamboos and hardwood are the chief sources (70%)
of raw materials for paper and board. Growing demand for 2.45 Mt will enhance dependence
on bamboo and hardwood.

It is evident from the data that the pulpwood had gone to nearly 6 percent of the wood
requirement by 2000. More than half of the pulpwood comes from bamboo as is shown in
following table.

Category Requirement in 1980 Requirement in 2000 Additional requirement

Mt% of total Mt% of total Mt% of % increase

Pulp and paper 2.165 51 3.546 51 1.381 64

Non-industry 2.109 49 3.459 49 1.350 64

Strial requirement 4.274 100 7.005 100 2.731 64

There is a substantial in newspaper industry. As per data per capita requirement have
gone upto 1. 1 kg by 2000, thus, the newsprint capacity was raised to 1.289 Mt. Following
are the estimated requirements for raw materials for newsprint.

Year Capacity Requirement (Mt)

1981 0.467

1986 0.596

1991 0.770

1996 1.000

2000 1.289

It is evident that shortfall of newsprit would grow rapidly as well as continuously by
the passage of time.

DEFORESTATION : MEANING AND RESULTS

Meaning of Deforestation

Deforestation is the process of felling trees indiscriminately resulting in nude or semi-
nude surface of the hill hitherto covered by thick forests.

Causes of Deforestation

Main causes responsible for deforestation are as under:

(a) Felling of trees to meet the ever increasing demand of the cities.

(b) Grazing by the local cattle, goats, sheep etc. They not only destroy the vegetation

but also pull out the roots of plants. After denudation of our Himalayas, the process

of deforestation started in the Shivalik range. Shivalik sal forests were over-exploited

for industry use, i.e. railway sleepers etc. Consequently, the foothills of the Shivaliks

are in semi desert conditions.

(c) Meeting out the growing hunger for land. It has hit the ecology of the country badly

very soon India is likely to have more of wasteland than productive land. Large-