Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram   

Curbs on planting valuable trees to be removed

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Aug. 9. The Government will direct the Forest department to remove the restrictions on the public for planting and felling valuable trees on their premises, the Minister for Forests, K. Sudhakaran, has said.

The Minister also announced that the Forest department, with the help of local bodies would identify two hectares of land each in every grama panchayat where intensive tree planting could be undertaken to create artificial forest covers.

He was inaugurating a programme of GREENS, the nature club of Secretariat employees, to distribute 2,500 tree saplings to the employees here on Friday.

Once the restrictions are lifted, people will no longer need to seek permission from the Forest department for planting valuable trees like sandalwood, teak, rosewood and ebony in their premises. The department will also supply saplings of these valuable wood trees at a nominal cost to the public, he said.

Mr. Sudhakaran also announced that under the Social Forestry project, only trees, which are specific and suitable to the region, such as mango, jack, `elanji' alone would be planted.

He said that over a lakh sandalwood saplings had been planted as part of the `Haritholsavam' scheme. Once the restrictions on the public to plant sandalwood trees are lifted, then the smuggling of sandal trees from individual compounds too would go down, he said.

The Minister pointed out that while official estimates put the forest coverage of the State at 26 per cent, by his estimates, this could not be more than 10 to 15 per cent.

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• Curbs on planting valuable trees to be removed
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