Green drive brings down level of harmful gases

Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 10

The J&K Government’s Forest and Environment Department has undertaken a “mission afforestation” to recover the lost forest cover, which is thought to have triggered the 2014 deluge.

To reverse the climate change effects, Forest and Environment Minister Chaudhary Lal Singh said his ministry had undertaken a plantation drive on a large-scale. “As a part of our mission afforestation, we have planted 70.37 lakh trees on 8,942 hectares of the area this year,” Lal Singh told The Tribune.

Official records show 13,360 hectares of forest land was damaged due to various reasons, including timber smuggling from forests and the 2014 floods. “Our endeavour is to recover the lost forest cover and plant trees at a large-scale to provide clean environment,” he said.

The Forest Department is providing saplings of conifers, Russian poplars and willow trees to schools, armed forces, NGOs and citizens interested in planting trees at a minimum cost. “We charge Re 1 for a sapling,” said a senior forest official in Kashmir.

J&K Pollution Control Board Chairman Ravi Kaisar said levels of carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide had gone down due to the massive plantation of trees. “Plants are a natural sink for carbon dioxide and due to the ban on felling of trees by the government, the pollution level has gone down,” Kaisar said.

However, environmental activists, who are planting trees at a large-scale in the past six years, accused the government of a lax approach. “We believe cutting of forests was one of the factors responsible for the 2014 deluge. And that is why everyone wants to become a part of the initiative to increase tree cover,” said Abdul Hamid, an environmental activist. Hamid’s company, Rahim Greens, uses profit from the automobile business to plant trees. His organisation along with J&K RTI Movement, led by Dr Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, is planting around 15,000 trees every year, across the Valley. “In 2009, the government was charging us Rs 2 per sapling but for the past three years, they charge us more than Rs 14 per sapling. Even, buying a sapling is a tedious process,” Dr Rasool said.

He said the government did not provide NGOs and locals the sapling for plantation for unknown reasons.