Time to create an action plan for rehabilitation of degraded forests: CS

NEW DELHI : Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, on friday chaired a meeting of the Forest, Ecology & Environment Department to assess its functioning besides reviewing the progress on ongoing conservation measures for protection of lakes and wetlands in the Union Territory.
During the meeting, the Chief Secretary directed the officers to frame a comprehensive action plan based on scientific principles for rehabilitation of degraded forest areas within a stipulated time frame.
To enhance the efficiency of forest land management, the Chief secretary instructed the officials to expedite the survey and demarcation of forest lands by installing boundary pillars and digitizing the records. This step aims to effectively curb encroachments and safeguard forest resources, he maintained.
Focusing on afforestation efforts, Dulloo asked the department to accelerate the plantation drives to meet the ambitious target of planting 1.5 crore saplings by the end of the upcoming plantation season. He stressed that achieving this goal without any delay was imperative for environmental sustainability. He emphasized the need for ensuring maximum survival of planted saplings by adopting protective measures, including fencing of reforested areas.
Highlighting the ecological importance of wetlands, the Chief Secretary underscored their crucial role in the ecosystem and called for rigorous conservation efforts. He directed the officials to ensure proper demarcation and protection of wetlands, along with improving water quality and other relevant parameters to enhance their sustainability.
Regarding Wular Lake conservation, the Chief Secretary instructed both the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and the Commissioner Secretary, Forests to personally visit the site. They were asked to review the status of the ongoing conservation works and devise a mechanism to accelerate their execution. He observed that Wular Lake, being Asia’s largest freshwater lake, necessitates urgent and effective conservation measures and has a scope of attracting a large number of tourists.
Regarding the conservation of Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, the Chief Secretary emphasized the need for increased manpower and furthering efforts to achieve tangible results. He pointed out that the scale of work required exceeds the current workforce, necessitating moving of additional resources on the ground for meeting the objectives set for its mitigation.
Additionally, the Chief Secretary stressed the early approval and implementation of the Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) in coordination with other departments. He instructed for formation of an inter-departmental coordination panel responsible for ensuring smooth execution of the plan by aligning available funds with the envisioned schemes.
Commissioner Secretary, FE&E, Sheetal Nanda, presented an overview of the functioning of the department. She informed that besides protection and conservation of forests, the department carries out rehabilitation of degraded forests, urban area afforestation, maintenance of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries besides looking after the wetlands, pollution control and biodiversity conservation in J&K.
She also apprised of some of the major achievements of the department registered during the past year and the plans for years ahead regarding development of Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP), plantation of around 1.5 crore saplings, demarcation of forest land besides other works.
In his presentation, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Suresh Kumar Gupta, highlighted that the UT has a forest area of around 20,194 sq km (47.8 % of Geographical area) with a tree cover of 151.8 million trees as per Draft ToF Report, 2023.
Regarding the UT level BAP, he informed the meeting that it establishes a general framework as per the guidelines of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), on current and future policies regarding conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
The department wise budget requirements have been worked out for eleven themes comprising 38 strategies involving a list of 161 activities. The overall budget by dovetailing of resources across different schemes implemented by various departments comes to Rs 187.8 crore per year upto 2030, he revealed.
Regarding plantation programme, the PCCF divulged that a total of 81.27 lakh saplings had been planted till January this year covering an area of 5703 ha. He further revealed that an area of 2150 sq km (as on 2019) had been prioritized as degraded forests, of which, 775 sq km had been treated during the last 5 years and the balance area to be treated is 1,375 sq km with an additional support of Rs. 78 crore per year for next 10 years. It was revealed that establishment of Nagar Vans in 42 ULBs (out of 80) had been achieved with rest to be done in coming years.
Regarding the survey and demarcation of forest area, it was added that out of the total of 300853 Boundary Pillars (BPs), 142144 had been renovated/ reinstalled. It was informed that survey of all the remaining BPs would be completed by December 2025 and the fixing of the same is set to be completed by March 2027.
The Chairman, Pollution Control Committee, gave details of monitoring of lakes, wetlands, rivers, ground water and other water bodies.
About Wular Lake conservation, the CEO, WUCMA revealed that demarcation of 84 km long Wular boundary has been completed with geo-tagged Boundary Pillars (1159 Nos). It was further added that out of 44 Km of bund consolidation in encroachment prone peripheral areas 11 km have been completed with a dredging of 5 sq km critically silted area till date.
While discussing the environment management plan of the Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, it was projected that it includes Wildlife Mitigation Plan for Rs. 236.00 crore (including 100 crore corpus), Catchment Area Treatment plan (CAT) for Rs. 44.00 crore and Biodiversity Conservation Management Plan for Rs. 18.00 crore.
The meeting was apprised that the Department of wildlife protection looks after 10 other wetlands in both Jammu and Kashmir divisions. These included Hokersar, Shallabugh, Hygam, Mirgund, Chatllalum, Kranchoo, Manibugh, Freshkoori in Kashmir and Surinsar-Mansar and Gharana wetlands in Jammu division.