The Salem Corporation will establish urban forests at 71 places in the city, as part of its efforts to create more lung spaces.
The civic body has identified vacant lands, open spaces, and parks where it would plant about 1,00,683 saplings.
Corporation Commissioner T.Christuraj said that over 8 lakh sq.ft. land would be utilised for the project. “The urban forests will be set up based on Miyawaki technique and only native tree varieties will be planted. This is just the first phase of the scheme and there are plans to expand the project,” he said.
According to the officials, assistant executive engineer and sanitary officers of respective areas have been appointed as coordinators and the City Health Officer would be the nodal officer for the project. Various service and voluntary organisations would be involved in the planting and maintenance of the sites.
He said the project has been planned in a manner in which there would be less financial commitment on the Corporation and the Departments of Forest and Horticulture. Mr.Christuraj said that they were planning to complete the sapling planting works by Saturday and each site would have 35 native varieties.
