SAVE HASDEO FOREST

 SAVE HASDEO FOREST The Hasdeo Arand Forest Hasdeo Arand, a vast forest in Chhattisgarh's north, is renowned for both its biodiversity and its coal seams. The Korba, Sujapur, and Sarguja districts, which have sizable tribal populations, include the forest. It is traversed by the Hasdeo river, a tributary of the Mahanadi. Hasdeo Arand is home to the "largest un-fragmented forests in Central India consisting of pristine Sal (Shorea robusta) and teak forests," according to a report on the area published in 2021 by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), an independent organisation under the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change. Mining Activity There are 23 coal blocks in the Hasdeo Arand Coal Field (HACF), which spans about 1,880 sq km. Around 2010, when the Chhattisgarh government suggested forest clearance for diverting 1,898.328 hectares of forest land for Parsa East and Kente Basan (PEKB) coal deposits, the demand for mining increase