PANAJI
After directions from the Bombay High Court at Goa, the recently revamped Tree Authorities constituted under the Goa Preservation of Trees Act has appointed three experts for conservation and preservation of trees in the State.
The three experts picked for the job are the president of the Botanical Society of Goa, president of Mangrove Society of India, Goa Chapter and Sujeet Kumar Dongre, Scientist, Centre for Environment Education, Goa.
This was revealed in a compliance report filed by the Tree Authorities of Goa, before the High Court following public interest litigation filed by NGO Living Heritage Foundation.
The high court, on July 8, had passed a detailed order about the revival of the tree authorities sought by the petitioner NGO.
The court has sought status reports from time to time from the tree authorities to assess the progress and compliance of the order.
The Goa, Daman and Diu Preservation of Trees Act, 1984, required the tree authorities to meet at least once every three months.
In a petition before the High Court, however, the Living Heritage Foundation pointed out that based on RTI queries, it was evident that the existence of the tree authorities was just on paper and they had never met or carried out duties prescribed under the act since its constitution.
On September 2, the first meeting, following the HC order, was convened by Puneet Kumar Goel, Principal Secretary (Forests).
The report also states that information like minutes of meetings, decisions of tree officers among others are being uploaded to the forest department website. It’s also informed that the department is in the final stages of developing an online portal for entertaining tree felling applications.
“Once the online portal is operational the entire process of tree felling will be online. Presently the forest department is regularly uploading the permissions granted for tree felling on the forest department’s website,” the report says.
The government has however expressed its reservations about the feasibility of carrying out a census of trees in the state given the complexity of such a task and claimed that despite being on the fast track of development, the state has been able to maintain a balance between conservation and development required for protection and conservation of its rich nature and natural resources.
“As per Indian States Forests Report, 2019 the Forest Cover of Goa has increased from 60.21 % to 60.43% in comparison to ISFR of 2017.
“The committee was apprised that the total recorded forest in Goa is 1,225 sq km which is 33.09% of the geographical area of the state which is 3,712 Sq. km. So, the Census of trees will have to be carried out in approximately 2487 Sq Km area, which is a huge task. In light of the above facts and circumstances, the committees observed that to plan and carry out a census of trees over approximately 2487 Sq Km area will be a huge and voluminous exercise, project a large number of technical, skilled manpower, logistics, IT equipment and funds. Therefore, the Department was of the view that, with the given information and complexity involved it is not feasible to ascertain, at this stage, the number of trees and time required to conduct the tree census of different age, class and species spread over the entire state in various landscapes and under different ownerships.,” Mohan of the Living Heritage Foundation said.
