The Union Minister of Environment, forests and climate change Prakash Javadekar said that due to the efforts made during the last five years, the country has witnessed an increase of 15,000 sq km tree cover.
He was addressing a convocation ceremony at Forest Research Institute (FRI), Deemed to be University, here on Saturday.
He said that the approaches like social forestry and agro-forestry and awareness generation among school students through raising nursery on the school premises are responsible for increase in the tree cover in the country.
Javadekar opined that the rules and regulations need to framed in such a manner that the common people could come forward to encourage tree planting.
Giving a slogan ‘Plant Tree, Grow Tree, and Use Tree’, the Minister said that by ensuring the availability of adequate food and water in the forests, the problem of man-animal conflict can effectively be
tackled.
He said that as cutting of trees is banned in India, the country has to import
wood worth Rs 40,000 crore every year.
Addressing the gathering, the Director General of Forests (DGF) and Special Secretary, Siddhanta Das said the country is witnessing a paradigm shift in priorities of scientific forest management.
He said that contrary to the earlier priorities like timber and non wood forest products, now conservation of forests and wildlife, livelihood generation, and water conservation have become the top agenda of the contemporary management strategies.
Das said that by successfully implementing the ‘Pradhanmantri Jal Swavalamban Yojana’ in Rajasthan, a significant rise of 4.2 feet of water table in just four years has occurred.
He added that water conservation is imperative in attaining the target of 2.5-3.0 billion ton of carbon sequestration.
In his address, the chancellor of the university and Director General of ICFRE, Dr S C Gairola, talked about some of the important initiatives of the ICFRE like preparation of second National Forestry Research Plan (NFRP) for the country and preparation of DPR for rejuvenation of 13 major rivers through forestry interventions.
He said ICFRE have taken important steps in re-vitalisation of forestry education in India.
The Convocation
The ceremony started with a majestic academic procession. A total of 315 degrees including 62 PhD and 253 Master of Science (MSc) were conferred in different disciplines and programmes of forestry.
In the convocation gold medals were awarded to the Nidhi, Oindrila Basu, Shabnam Bandyopadhyay (Forestry), Ajin Sekhar, Mitinam Jamoh (Environment Management), Priya Bisht, Subrata Pal (Wood Science and Technology), Vijya Kumar, Gursimaran Kaur Bagga (Cellulose and Paper technology).