The Director-General of Forests, Sharad Singh Negi , reviewed the status of work on the varied priority areas suggested in forestry research by the Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar to the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE).
To review the progress of action taken on these priorities areas along with status of concept notes and research proposal formulated there upon by all the nine institutes of ICFRE, the director general of forests and special secretary MoEFCC visited the ICFRE along with MoEFCC DIG (RT) Suneesh Buxy here on Monday.
According to the officials of the council, the DG of forests reviewed the progress and expressed some satisfaction He further directed officials that research proposal for the areas are to be taken up on priority basis and proposals in this regard may be got approved through the bodies concerned at the earliest.
It is pertinent to mention here that Javadekar suggested priority areas of forestry research to ICFRE with special emphasis on eradication of weeds/invasive alien species, efficient water harvesting/ recharging through forests, increase in availability of fodder from forests and its quality improvement, marketing of trees of important species with electronic/physical/chemical markers, early warning system for forest fire, choice of species to be planted according to the eco-climatic zones, how to improve quality of forests, replacement of exotic species with the native flora, development of bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers for use in forestry, species recovery programme and revival of threatened species, how to increase the survival percentage of plantations, effective and efficient use of bamboo-both as timber and fodder, how to improve the habitat of wild animals so that wild animals do not come out of forests, how to reduce timber import by improving the wood utilisation technologies and increase of tree cover of the country through development of holistic models of agro-forestry.
Further in this context the ICFRE DG had conveyed the instruction to the directors of all the nine institutes of ICFRE across the nation to prepare concept notes for taking up the research projects on these priority areas in the states under their respective jurisdiction.