THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said that the state had become a role model in protecting forests at a time when globally the forest cover was dwindling and the forest-dwellers were being evacuated.
The Chief Minister was inaugurating the Forest Fest 2011 on the Kanakakkunnu Palace grounds here on Monday.
He said the State Government had taken every initiative to bring down global warming by arresting degradation of forests and increasing the forest cover of the state.
“In the past five years, we have been able to increase the forest area by over 55,000 acres. This includes the 17,000-odd acres of land in Munnar which had been declared as forest area,’’ he said.
The Chief Minister also claimed that getting school and college students in the afforestation programmes was a major achievement of his Government.
He concluded his speech by saying that protection and conservation of the forest and environment is everyone’s responsibility.
Forest Minister Binoy Viswam, who presided over the function, said that all cases against the tribal people, except for the ones connected with poaching and sandalwood smuggling would be dropped.
He also said that as part of improving the activities of the Forest Department, all employees right from the level of forest guards would be provided with mobile phones.
Ministers N K Premachandran, V Surendran Pillai, Ramachandran Kadannapally and A Sampath MP, also spoke on the occasion.