Assam Forest Department concentrating on urban & roadside plantation: PCCF

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: “Assam Forest Department (AFD) is now concentrating on urban and roadside plantation. If Delhi can increase its green coverage then why not Assam? The total forest coverage of Assam is now 35 per cent which is above the national forest coverage. But the total percentage of dense forest coverage of Assam is just 9 per cent. Now it is a big challenge for all of us to increase the percentage of dense forest. The percentage of open forest area of our State is 10 to 14. It should be our mission to change this open forest area to dense forest. We need forest and development simultaneously,” said Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) and Head of Forest Force, Government of Assam, AM Singh in the Green Action Week- India state-level stakeholder consultation at Guwahati on Wednesday.

In his inaugural speech, the PCCF told that river waters come from forest areas. If the percentage of deforestation increases day by day than one day, rivers like Brahmaputra and Barak might dry out. We have a good example in our hand that by massive plantation, we can successfully increase the water level of some rivers of our State. Green Action Week is a global campaign to promote sustainable development and 50 organizations in 30 countries are part of this joint action.

Consumers’ Legal Protection Forum, Assam (CLPF) is observing Green Action Week Campaign 2019, in partnership with CUTS International, Jaipur and Swedish society for nature conservation. The theme of this year’s campaign is ‘Sustainable development: Sharing Community’. The programme was attended by more than 60 people including environment experts, forest officials, youth icons, officials from municipal corporation, students and faculties from different colleges, media, CSOs and activists working on nature conservation, consumer issues.

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