They say they do not know who is responsible for the cutting of trees.
“The locals cut down the trees, but we are unsure who they were. We saw that the trees had been cut down from this area when we came to see,” Nazim Abdullah, a resident of Shaqlawa, told Rudaw.
The trees on over 100 dunams of land in the village were chopped down, locals say. Not all the chopped-down trees were moved away as they are difficult to transport.
Shaqlawa Forest and Environment Police have arrested around 176 people for looting trees and seized 52 pickup trucks since May last year.
“They cut the trees with a chainsaw and take them during the day because the chainsaw is loud during the night. Also, transporting these trees is difficult during the night since it is a mountainous area. They transfer the cut-down trees from here with animals like donkeys, and then they continue from there with a car,” said Bestun Sabir, another resident.
Colonel Walid Hamad, director of the Shaqlawa Forest and Environment Police Department, said the main issue is the presence of coal furnaces and we have demanded the shutdown of the coal furnaces.
According to Article 21 of the Forestry Law in the Kurdistan Region, the penalty for cutting down trees is between three million and five million Iraqi dinars and imprisonment is another punishment, which does not exceed one year.
