Team Herald
PONDA: The Forest Review Committee disposed 1306 of the 3195 survey numbers which were provisionally identified as private forests by Thomas and Araujo Committees.
The forest officials said the interim report of the committees has been uploaded on the Forest Department’s website https://www.forest.goa.gov.in as per the direction of the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
The forest officials said the review of the balance survey numbers is underway. Following this, the long pending issue of survey and demarcation of private forest areas provisionally identified by Thomas and Araujo Committees has been resolved by the State government to a large extent by accepting the interim report submitted by the Review Committee constituted to review the private forest areas provisionally identified by these committees.
It may be recalled that the Deputy Conservator Working Plan Division, Ponda had last year asked land owners to file objections/representations, if any, whose lands were preliminary identified as private forests by District Level Expert Committee for North and South (Thomas and Araujo Committees).
The objections were filed by the land owners last year.
