The Centre is coming out with a new mechanism to encourage states to maintain and enhance forest covers.
The policy which is in the design stage, aims at giving special ‘green bonus’ to the state for maintaining the ecology and forest covers, Minister of State for Environment and Forests (Independent charge) Jairam Ramesh said here on Sunday.
He said states like Kerala, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh have large areas under forest which has significantly contributed to the national interest like absorbing greenhouse gases. “Now, we have to see how the forest covers remain in-tact while at the same time launching various re-forestation programmes. To encourage this, I have proposed the idea of a green bonus to states which are under the consideration of the government,” Ramesh said.
As per the last available report, India’s forest cover stood at 21 per cent. This included about 2 per cent of land under high density forests, 10 per cent of medium density forests and 9 per cent of degraded forests. The minister said the green bonus initiative would help convert the degraded forests into medium and medium forests to high density forests in the next 10-20 years, as part of which the government has launched massive re-forestation programme.
“India is among a few countries who are doing re-forestation, though our numbers are smaller as compared to China. China is re-foresting 4 million hectares of lands every year as compared to our 0.4 million hectares per year,” he said.
India’s re-forestation programmes will now focus on improving the quality of forest covers by planting trees which can absorb the greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide to a greater extent. According to a preliminary observation by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, about 10 per cent of India’s annual greenhouse gases are being absorbed by the forests. The government has now engaged ISRO to find out the regional variation in terms of absorption of greenhouse gases.
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“There might be regional imbalance in terms of absorption of greenhouse gases. Forests covers in Kerala, the Western Ghat region and
Himalayan forests might be absorbing more greenhouse gases than other forests. We need to study it to come out with some solutions,” the minister said.
The government has already proposed to set up a National Institute for Climate and Environmental Sciences (NICE) in Bangalore, which will be operational in the ongoing fiscal. The institute which intends to work in creating the infrastructure for long-term research on climate change, will monitor and measure the impact of global warming on the Himalayan glacier, other than measuring the impact of greenhouse emissions on India’s forest covers.
In this context, ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said the space agency would expand its network of ground stations and towers in the forest areas to monitor the absorption of carbon sink. ISRO plans to have at least 11 towers in various forest areas to monitor carbon absorption.
The space research agency also plan to increase the number of automatic weather stations to about 1,000 from the present of 600-700. A few of these weather stations will now be set up in the Himalayan regions, he said.