Gujarat: Lone ranger frees 1,250 hectares encroached forest land

SANJELI (DAHOD): In the forest of the Baria division, trees and wildlife sleep at night knowing Rakesh Vankar is out there to protect them.
Meet the 36-year-old forest officer (RFO) at Sanjeli range, an indomitable spirit that keeps the pristine forest ‘intruder-free’. Vankar mission is to ensure that forests and its land under his jurisdiction stay clean, but it has its perils too.
During his mammoth tasks, Vankar survived an assault as locals attempted to run him over with a tractor in 2019.
“It was a difficult task, but we were determined,” the ranger told TOI. Vankar is credited as the only individual ranger in the state, who restored a whopping nearly 1,300 hectares back to the forest by fighting encroachers in the past two-and-a-half-years. The land parcel is equivalent to half the area of Vansda National Park (VNP).
What the maize crops had covered down the years at Velpur village were restored to its natural flora like teak, coral swirl and even wildlife including leopards, jackals, hyena, porcupines and the blue bulls reclaimed their habitat after it became a safe wildlife corridor.
“When I joined duty in March 2019 at Sanjeli I found that prime forest land was being encroached and I took it as my mission to remove encroachments. Our team would go into the field at 6am and return at midnight every single day. We would verify land rights and if the land is found to be encroached, we would immediately work to set it free,” said Vankar, who, in fact had unearthed a major scam of forging forest rights act documents (Sanad) to claim their rights.
“I was suspicious about the authenticity of some documents and we checked these with our division office where such claim rights were approved. But none was passed and we found 26 papers to be forged. In many cases, they would try to fox us saying that they have filed claims for the land, but on verification would find it to be false. This exercise helped restore forest land under protection,” Vankar said.
“But with forest regeneration, villagers are getting fodder from the grassland and are happy that forest cover has increased in their surroundings,” said the forester, whose happiness reflected in his eyes when he showed the flora and fauna reclaiming its lost land in the village fringes.
Talking to TOI, deputy conservator of forests, Baria division, R M Parmar said, “Range Forest Officer Rakesh Vankar, who took great pains to verify land records and remove precious forest lands from encroachers, has done remarkable work in protecting forests and wildlife. We appreciate his efforts.” He further added that a conservative estimate suggests that Vankar was instrumental in removing encroachments from nearly 1,300 hectare forest land.