Lab for preserving plant life from Western Ghats
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, FEB 24
The endangered species of flora found in the Western Ghats would be preserved in a scientific manner by the State Forest Department by setting up a tissue culture laboratory planned to be set up at Valpoi.
The department’s monitoring and evaluation cell officials said that the tissue culture laboratory will be set up at the Forest Training School in Valpoi. The laboratory will have a mandate to preserve the rich plant life from the Western Ghats on the verge of extinction or endangered, they mentioned.
The Forest Department has called for scientific help from Goa University and other institutions to help them get information about the endangered and extinct species.
A senior official said that Dr Janardanan from GU was working on the project to identify these species.
The funding for this ambitious laboratory project will be sought from the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), which is a centrally sponsored scheme.
Goa had received Rs 12.1 crore for fiscal 2010-11. “We already have a laboratory at Valpoi but it is being expanded in a big way to help the conservation of plant life from the Western Ghats,” a forest official said.
The department has also initiated a project of ‘research plots’ under CAMPA funding. Officials said that the permanent preservation plots would be identified at different locations and behaviour of the plant species in it would be studied.
“These plots would be kept in their natural state,” he said adding that the study on the growth statistics and changes that take place within the plot would be undertaken.
