The Chief Minister, Harish Rawat has asked Forest Department officials to identify land in Ramnagar area for establishing a leopard rescue centre-cum-safari park to house leopards caught in human-wildlife conflict. Farms should also be set up in some forest areas to facilitate breeding of wild animals. The CM said this while chairing a review meeting of the Forest Department late on Thursday night.
The CM stressed on the need for linking forests to the State’s development. Rawat said that efforts must be made to increase sources of revenue. The objective of the Humara Pedh Humara Dhan scheme is to increase employment for locals as well as to conserve environment, he said. During the review, the CM stated that eco tourism can be a great source of livelihood and employment. A strong project plan must be made to ensure this.
The objective of the department must be to develop at least 250 villages for village tourism. Along with this, the old and important guest houses of the forest department must be conserved. The concept of forest based tourism must be considered. The CM also gave directions to the officers of Uttarakhand Forest Development Corporation to achieve the target for revenue.
The fell wood becomes a problem for forest department and thus must be cleared on time. They should also manage the corporation properly. The forest department will have to adopt commercial approach in order to achieve desired revenue. Regarding the damage caused to farming by wild boar and monkeys, the CM directed necessary measures including construction of fences and shelters for monkeys.
Plantation of trees and formation of water bodies must be planned so that there is no dearth of water. If there are sufficient number of water bodies in forest, animals will not have to go out of forest to look for water. The Forest Department has been asked to construct over a lakh water bodies and also hold tree plantation drives. Speaking on the occasion, the Forest Minister Dinesh Agarwal said that the schemes announced by the government must be implemented on ground. The budget for implementation of these schemes must be presented. Chief secretary N Ravishankar, PCCF SS Sharma and other officials were present in the meeting.