An environmental impact study has been undertaken to cut down the Rithepani hill in the south-east of Pokhara International Airport.
After the airport requested permission from the Forest Division Office in Pokhara to cut down the slope, the Forest Office launched the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The forest office has said that it is appropriate to remove 600 trees in the forest.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) guidelines, mountains around the airport have to be cut down. It is then appropriate to cut 40 meters of Rithepani hill.
At the insistence of the airport, numbering has been accomplished for 600 trees. However, the airport must cultivate 25 trees per tree according to the forestry protocol and hand it over to the forest service.
Kedar Baral, head of the Forest Division Office, Pokhara, said that permission would be granted to begin cutting down the hill after the land was purchased and made accessible by the airport.
Raju Acharya, a forest conservationist, said that deforestation was taking place in the name of significant construction ventures.
Any initiative cut one tree in the name of growth and must plant 25 trees.
However, even though the airport’s construction work is about to be finished, the phase of purchasing land and raising seedlings, which would affect the cutting of Ritepani hill, would not be carried out.
