PANAJI
A week after the Bombay High Court at Goa rapped it for shirking the responsibility of conducting the State's tree census, the Forest department has constituted teams and put them under the charge of officers of the level of deputy and assistant conservator of forest for each of the 12 talukas.
The trees will be counted and recorded with their local as well as scientific names.
The forest department was under a mandate to conduct the tree census following the enactment of the Trees Act in 1984 but ignored it even after directions from the High Court.
Last week, a division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justices Mahesh Sonak and R N Laddha reprimanded the State government for this failure and asked the Tree Authority to come up with a plan to conduct the census.
"The Tree Authorities should come up with effective solutions and comply with the statutory as well as the judicial mandate,” the bench said, after operational and logistical problems were cited by the government.
It also rejected the government's suggestion of a piece-meal census, first in the jurisdictions of the City Corporation of Panaji (CCP) and Margao Municipal Council (MMC) instead of the whole 2,500 square kilometres in the entire State.
The High Court's directions to conduct the tree census came along with the disposal of the petition filed by Living Heritage Foundation. It ordered the North Goa and South Goa Tree authorities to carry out the census of existing trees in the State as per the statutory mandate of the Goa Preservation of Trees Act.
The High Court has also asked for the State to file compliance reports from time to time.
