Govt to increase community forests

Speaking to reporters, Sangma said that the forest cover of the state has come down slightly.

“As a forest department we find it alarming and this is something we should take as a wakeup call and we are working tirelessly and all our officers  are right now on the job to ensure we arrest this kind of reduction and also at the same time increase our forest cover,” he said.

Stating that there is very less number of areas under the government’s jurisdiction and control, Sangma however said, “But regardless of that we are working towards ensuring that we increase the number of community forests that are there.”

There are 81 community forests in Meghalaya at present.

He informed that the department has seen a lot of positive response coming from many villagers and villages who are keen to give their land not ownership but to convert their certain areas into community reserved forests which will be protected.

“The government will be compensating the villages to some extent for that,” he added.

Further, the minister also informed that the government of Meghalaya has set forth a very well ambitious target of having 8 million saplings to be planted this year.

“The department already have about 8 lakh seedlings that we are going forward with and we will be having afforestation efforts to increase the forest cover,” he said.

“At the same time, the forest department has also set upon itself a target because we already have a raise of 3.5 million seedlings in our nurseries and these will be planted next year. So we will have 3.5 million saplings which we as forest department will be planting for next year,” he added.

According to Sangma, there are other mitigation efforts also underway. “We want to ensure that Meghalaya in terms of its greenery, in terms of its ecology, all efforts are made to preserve them as chief minister has been saying in all his interactions,” he stated.

When asked on the reasons for the decreased in the forest cover, the minister said “The forest department only owns certain amount of forest as majority of the forests are with the community – that is why there are multiple reasons why this cover could have gone down. It is also because of economic activities that are taking place at the cost of the environment sometimes.”

By Our Reporter