Chennai: After being a leader in 2015 with an increased forest cover of 2,501 square km, Tamil Nadu had now badly slipped to the bottom by recording a meagre increase of 73 square km which is 0.25 per cent, an all-time low in the recent past.
Going by the records released by Forest Survey of India, TN districts had lost their tree cover badly in 11 districts, thus questioning the accountability behind the multi-crore afforestation projects and the annual conservation activities taken up by the Tamil Nadu forest department over the past two years.
“The state in its revenue records maintains expenditure for more than dozen ongoing tree planting and conservation schemes and this result is a huge setback for the entire state”, said a senior state forest department official. Till 2016, the state planted more than 65 lakh saplings every year to mark the birthday celebrations of former CM Jayalalithaa but now the results are not encouraging and I was hoping for our forest cover to improve at least by three percent”, the official added.
According to Panahal building (state forest headquarters) sources, there are decade old projects and regular annual projects for all the districts in TN under various heads. There are five major projects including National Afforestation Programme (NAP), Tamil Nadu Biodiversity Conservation and Greening Project (TBGP), Agroforestry scheme, disaster management scheme and growing of timber in private lands, but this result needs an in-depth analysis and there has to be a detailed investigation on these projects by a third party, sources said.
“Be glad that the forest cover has not reduced and there are multiple reasons for the decrease in certain areas. Cyclone and then the clearing of weed, particularly juliflora in the wake of high court order will certainly reduce the green cover. And the satellites cannot differentiate between the weed and the invasive species that are being cleared”, a senior official clarified when contacted for the poor track record by Tamil Nadu.
