PANJIM: The identification and the demarcation of the private forest areas are likely to be completed in next six months, with forest department completing the ocular assessment of these areas.
The forest department has also constituted the new Private Forests Review Committee to review private forest areas identified by North and South Goa Forest Division Committee which were constituted in November 27, 2012 and headed by VT Thomas and Francisco Araujo.
The committee has to assess the areas of 42.12 square meters identified as Private Forest by Sawant and Karapurkar committee, nearly a decade ago.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) Ajai Saxena said that ocular assessment of private forest areas has been completed and now the areas are being verified using our forest maps and boundaries of privately owned areas provided the DSLR/Revenue Department. “Final figures of private forest areas will be known in next six months or so,” he said.
As per the guidelines/criteria for identifying privately owned areas as private forests all areas contiguous to government forests having 75 per cent forestry species composition and with 40 per cent canopy cover will be considered as forest irrespective of the size of the plot while in another areas, besides 40 per cent canopy cover and 75 per cent forestry species composition, the minimum area will also be considered and it should not be less than 5 hectares.
Meanwhile, in view of the grievances received from citizens and NGOs regarding inclusion and non-inclusion of certain areas as private forest and in order to ensure an uniform approach towards the issue the new Private Forests Review Committee has been constituted by the department.
The new committee comprises of Deputy Conservator of Forest- Ponda as Chairperson and Director Settlement and Land records, Additional Collector North and South Goa, Assistant Conservator of Forest of North and South Goa division and environmentalist Sandeep Azrenkar, and Shirang Jhamble.
