Dhangadi, April 9 Forest authorities in the far-west region have rued the ongoing encroachment of forests by the government as well as other sections of the society in the name of development and other activities. According to Narendra Chand, officer at Far-west Regional Forest Directorate Monitoring Office, vast swathes of forests in Kanchanpur and Kailali, among other districts, have been destroyed to build community schools, government offices, temples and other religious landmarks. “The government should be protecting the forests, but it has been destroying them on various pretexts,” he said, adding,” We can’t even condemn the government for such activities because if we do, we are called anti-development or anti-religious. Moreover, our suggestions are never heeded.” As per an official data, forests occupy 9,476 square kilometres of total 19,539 square kilometre area of the region. Of the total forest area, 28,463 hectares have been encroached so far. “Around 21,154 hectares of forest area has been encroached in Kailali, 6,500 hectares in Kanchanpur and 409 hectares in Dadeldhura. The districts have highest area of forest encroached, respectively,” informed Chand, adding, “Not a single district is untouched by human encroachment.” He also complained of the challenges they were facing to control encroachment of forests. “Though we are serious about stopping encroachment of forests, lack of cooperation from the  political parties has been a major hurdle,” said Chand, also condemning the trend of constructing roads though various community forests.