Former Chief Minister N. Biren Singh reasserts anti-poppy drive amid national media reports on Manipur’s worsening deforestation

In a strong public reaction to recent national media reports confirming large-scale deforestation in Manipur, former Chief Minister N. Biren Singh took to social media platform ‘X’ to defend his government’s sustained campaign against illegal poppy cultivation and call for immediate afforestation efforts.
“Now let’s be serious—even national media has confirmed the deforestation through satellite imagery. Many people didn’t believe the State Government’s claims. But the facts speak for themselves,” he wrote. N. Biren emphasized that from 2017 to 2025, the government had destroyed over 18,000 hectares of illegal poppy plantations across the state, describing it as a significant move to curb drug trafficking and forest degradation.
The post comes in response to a satellite-based report by Suhora Technologies, published by national outlets, which revealed alarming levels of forest loss in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. The report stated that Manipur alone lost over 21,100 hectares of forest cover between 2021 and 2025, with nearly 17,800 hectares lost in 2024—largely attributed to shifting cultivation, illegal logging, drug crop plantations, infrastructure projects, and forest fires. The forest loss also translated to an estimated 9.11 million tonnes of CO‚  emissions.
Biren Singh urged the public to review official data on poppy and cannabis destruction and called for a united front in restoring the state’s forests. “What we need now is mass afforestation. The time to act is now. Let’s join hands and restore our forests,” he stated.
The same report also flagged Arunachal Pradesh for increasing deforestation alerts and ongoing wildfires, with satellite imagery capturing active forest blazes and 3,331 deforestation alerts in just one week.
Environmental experts have supported Singh’s call, pointing to the urgent need for afforestation, better forest fire detection, and strengthened monitoring of illicit land use. The former Chief Minister’s statement has drawn attention to the environmental cost of narcotics-related land exploitation and has reignited public discourse on forest conservation in the region.