The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Forest Department's new greening project from April

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Thursday, Oct 21, 2010
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Forest Department's new greening project from April

P. Oppili

Financial aid from Japan International Cooperation Agency

First component includes addressing man-animal conflict, management of bird sanctuaries
Under second component, department will plant 10 crore saplings on private ‘patta' lands

CHENNAI: The State Forest Department will implement a new project, Tamil Nadu Biodiversity Conservation and Greening Project, with financial assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) beginning April next year.

Sharing the details with The Hindu, A.S. Balanathan, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force, Tamil Nadu, said the total cost of the project was Rs.686 crore, of which the State government had agreed to contribute Rs.188 crore.

The eight-year project has been divided into three blocks. The first year will be the preparatory period, the next five, from April 2012 to March 2017, implementing period, and the third maintenance and monitoring, which will go on from April 2017 to March 2019, he said.

The project has two components: biodiversity conservation and increasing natural resource base in the State. Under biodiversity conservation, the department has drawn up several schemes. Important among them are addressing the man-animal conflict and habitat improvement and management of bird sanctuaries in the State.

So far, the department has not taken up habitat improvement and management in bird sanctuaries. It is for the first time a project has been created to improve bird sanctuaries in the State, he said.

Under the second component, the department will take up planting of 10 crore saplings on private ‘patta' lands over five years.

The saplings for the project will be raised in Forest Department nurseries in the State. Already, the nurseries were raising nearly a crore saplings annually and for this project they have to double that number, he said.

Institutional capacity building, outreach programmes for farmers participating in the ‘Increasing Natural Resource Base' component, research, monitoring and evaluation of the planted saplings are some of the other work which will be part of the programme, he added.

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