Mumbai: An ambitious plan of the Maharashtra government to undertake a tree plantation drive involving 100 crore new saplings will fall short of its target this year. Due to technical difficulties, the state government has revised its target from the 100 crore to 30 crore for this year. The balance 70 crore will be included in the revised target for the next year, an official said.

JAIPUR: With the forest department unwilling to issue a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for traffic via the Ghat Ki Ghuni tunnel, the JDA has got another hurdle ahead before completion of the project.

The forest department has asked the (JDA) to deposit Rs 14 lakh to get NOC for the project. The Ghat Ki Ghuni tunnel project, aimed at providing an alternative to the narrow Jaipur-Agra Road, is being constructed by drilling the Jhalana hills.

The greening drive in the district under which about 1.64 lakh saplings are to be planted would be executed in three phases, said Collector Jayashree Muralidharan on Tuesday.

Chairing a meeting to review the implementation of the programme , Ms. Muralidharan pointed out that the greening initiative was launched as part of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's birthday celebration.

Protection of five river valley basins tops its agenda

The Western Ghats Task Force has submitted a proposal to recruit 1,000 forest personnel required to protect the natural forests of the Western Ghats. This was announced by Ananth Hegde Ashisara, chairperson of the Task Force, at a meeting on the protection of environment, forests and bio-diversity and pollution control at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in the city on Wednesday.

The government is set to enact a law to protect the rich biodiversity of the country and also to safeguard Indian agriculture from bio-terrorism and inflow of dangerous pests from outside. The proposed legislation, Agricultural Biosecurity Bill-2012, is high on the agenda of the Union Cabinet for its consideration, which will meet on Thursday.

Confirming this, sources in the government said, the proposed legislation would be on the lines of similar law in place in New Zealand, Australia and the US. The legislation seeks to establish an authority to replace existing plantation protection advisers.

JAIPUR: Even though a good two years have passed since the state government announced its first-ever forest policy in 2010, the notification is still awaiting active implementation.

The Rajasthan State Forest Policy 2010 had acknowledged the importance of Orans that are considered repositories of rich biodiversity and an excellent example of people's religious faith linked with conservation. The aim of the forest policy was to preserve ecological balance through increasing vegetal cover which would help in reducing soil erosion and consequently dust particle in upper stratosphere.

The area under forest cover in Karnataka has increased by four square kilometres, according to a latest report of the Forest Survey of India. It says the change has been noticed in the assessment year of 2009, compared to the survey carried out in 2008. The report was put in the public domain recently.

Sources in the State government told The Hindu that the change for the better was being seen for the first time in about a decade. What was noteworthy was that at a time when forests were being “plundered in terms of their flora and fauna and conservationists facing a tough challenge,” the increase, though negligible, marks a refreshing change.”

Three years after over a lakh trees were axed and nearly two lakh plants uprooted for widening of the National Highway-I, Punjab is finding it hard to meet its afforestation target due to paucity of forestland. So much so that the state Forest Department was now planting saplings on common village land and in educational institutes.

In a remarkable attempt under the auspices of the department of Forests, BTC under Haltugaon Forest Division in Kokrajhar as many as 100 jawans of 15 Dogra Regiment of Indian Army & 315 Eco-Task Force Battalion successfully planted 40885 saplings within an hour at Khalashi area under Jharbari Range in Haltugaon Division on April 29.

This outnumbered the Guinness Book World Record in which as many as 26,422 trees were planted on December 5, 2009 last at Gransha Park of Northern Ireland of the United Kingdom.