This might come as a surprise to many, but the Ankleshwar and Bharuch region of Gujarat was once a lush green forest cover. Today, this region is best known for its high concentration of chemical factories, but almost 30 years ago tigers, leopards, wild dogs and the Indian bison roamed freely here. Today, they are all missing. According to a Gujarat Ecology Commission report (GEC) of 1996, the total forest cover of Bharuch district is 1,449.68 square kilometres, Ankleshwar, Jhagadia and Panoli constitute a total of 773 square kilometres. But rapid industrialisation in the last 15 years has left 126 square kilometres of the 362 square kilometres vegetation cover in Ankleshwar with uncontrollable growth of 'gando baval'. Environment experts fear that the rapid growth of