The Hindu : National : Developmental activities affecting forest terrain, says N.D. Tiwari

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Developmental activities affecting forest terrain, says N.D. Tiwari

Special Correspondent

Meet on ‘Conservation of the Eastern Ghats’ inaugurated

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

FOCUS ON CONSERVATION: N.D. Tiwari (centre), Governor of Andhra Pradesh; Bir Singh Parsheera (left), Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests; and Abhijit Sen, Member, Union Planning Commission, at the seminar on ‘Conservation of the Eastern Ghats’ in Chennai Friday.

CHENNAI: Human-induced pressure such as forest fires and degradation due to grazing have adversely affected the diversity and density of the wild faunal and floral corridors, said Narayan Datt Tiwari, Governor of Andhra Pradesh, here on Friday.

Inaugurating a two-day national seminar on ‘Conservation of the Eastern Ghats,’ Mr Tiwari said due to huge developmental activity taking place along the Eastern Ghats including industrialisation, there were encroachments, which were making inroads into the forest terrain making it even more fragile on account of the demands on the natural resources of this region.

Eastern Ghats is a fragile ecosystem but have tremendous heritage not only because of the presence of holy shrines but also due to its rich bio-diversity, flora and fauna, rich medicinal plants and the tribal heritage of this region, Mr. Tiwari said.

The Eastern Ghats were referred to as ‘Tors’ of geological antiquity and said to be older than the Himalayas. There were no continuous terrains but intercepted by plains and rivers such as the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Pennar, Mr. Tiwari added.

Abhijit Sen, Member, Union Planning Commission, said those who were working on conservation of natural resources should ask themselves where things went wrong.

Similarly, they should think whether they were communicating to people who were in a decentralised decision making set up.

A project jointly sponsored by Department of Biotechnology and Department of Space - ‘National Biodiversity Characterisation at Landscape level’ is being implemented in three phases, said P.S.Roy, Deputy Director, Remote Sensing and GIS Application Area, National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad.

He said the project was aimed at identifying and mapping the potential biodiversity rich regions in the country.

At present phase one and two had been completed and phase three is in progress, he said.

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