Speaking to media persons on the sidelines of World Environment Day, Saldanha said that in certain talukas ocular identification of private forests has been complete, while the ground verification is yet to begin.
“This has delayed the process. Now directions have been issued to carry out ocular and ground identification process together, without further delays,” the minister said. She added that a committee member has raised apprehensions about declaring private forest areas as non-private forest at Tiracol, where the golf course project is proposed.
Two committees – North Goa Private Forest Identification Committee and South Goa Private Forest Identification Committee – are involved in compiling reports from each district.
The issue of private forest areas has been in focus for almost a decade now with the Sawant Committee (1997) and the Karapurkar Committee (2000) together identifying 67 sq km of such forests across the State. According to these committees, private forest areas are contiguous to forests and if in isolation should be more than five hectare in area.
Goa, which has the Western Ghats dotting its eastern border has a rich forest.
