COIMBATORE: More than 87,000 farmers have benefitted under the tree cultivation in private lands (TCPL) project which covered 1,43,000 hectares across Tamil Nadu in the last three decades, Siddharth Parameswaran, Development Specialist, JICA India has said.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day workshop on Biodiversity Conservation and Livelihood Improvement, organised by the Tamil Nadu Biodiversity Conservation and Greening Project for Climate Change Response (TBGPCCR) and JICA in the city, he said strong support from Tamil Nadu forest department has enabled JICA to provide financial assistance for four consecutive forestry projects in the last three decades.
P Senthil Kumar, Principal Secretary to Environment Climate Change and Forests department, was the chief guest. He said tribal communities are getting economic benefits under such projects and the department has been implementing projects using AI-based technologies.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas R Reddy said the department is focussing not only on the terrestrial landforms but is also engaged in aquatic and marine resources conservation.
“We have learned a lot from the projects which were implemented for fine tuning the biodiversity conservation so far and thus would be really helpful for the present DFOs and Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF’s) to widen their knowledge,” he said
I Anwardeen, PCCF and Chief Project Director of TBGPCCR, said that for the first time in South India, this project has initiated Eastern ghat specific landscape level community centric conservation by setting up 155 tribal eco development committees for promotion of various livelihood opportunities and agricultural development.
“This is the first state to identify 25 priority tree species at state level and create species recovery plans for them,” he pointed out.