Team Herald
panjim: The State has constituted inspections teams for both districts, to carry out site inspection of the properties that met the private forest criteria in respect of the provisionally identified private forest areas by Thomas and Araujo Committee.
In August, the National Green Tribunal had directed the government to notify an area of 46.11 sq kms as ‘private forest’ identified by the Sharma committee.
In a fresh notification issued, the forest dept has constituted six inspection teams in North and eight teams in South Goa to carry out site inspection of the properties fulfilling or meeting private forests criteria of canopy density and area, as per the Forest Survey of India (FSI) map.
The 14 site inspection teams will work under direct supervision of the concerned territorial Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF); and the concerned territorial Range Forest Officer (RFO) will act as Member Secretary of respective sub-committee.
The team has to delineate private forest boundary on the ground and survey the area inside the delineated forest boundary.
It also has to carry out site inspection of the properties and collect data on percentage of forestry species by total enumeration. The land owner will be given an opportunity to remain present during enumeration.
It has to prepare georeferenced survey plan of areas qualifying the criteria of private forests i.e. 75 per cent of tree species of forestry type and then submit field data sheets and survey plan to the concerned territorial DCF.
