DEHRADUN: The Uttarakhand government has started process to create city forests in all its eight municipal corporations.
"These forests, ranging 10-50 hecatre will be created in the vicinity of the cities to provide the city much needed green cover. The proposals will be send to the union goverment before August 30 for further assessment and approval," said state chief wildlife warden JS Suhaag.
The municipal bodies have been asked to submit a proposal in this regard before August 30, 2020. The hill state has total of 101 municipal bodies out of which 8 are municipal corporations, 41 municipal councils, 43 nagar panchayats and 9 cantonment boards.
On June 5 which happens to be World Environment Day, Prakash Javedkar, union minister for forest, environment and climate change had announced 'Nagar Van' scheme under which 200 city forests across the country will be developed in next five years of time.
Last year in December, a repor by Forest Survey of India titled ‘Indian State of Forests Report (ISFR) 2019’ revealed that forest cover in 10 districts of Uttarakhand has increased in last two years time while three districts have recorded decrease, stated biennial report of Forest Survey of India released
The report titled stated that the forest cover rose to 24,303 square kilometres (sq kms) forest area in 2019 from 24,295 sq kms forest area in 2017. Overall increase of 8 square kilometers of forest cover was registered thi year while in biennial report of year 2017 registered increase of 23 square kilometers.
The district which registered decline in forest area are Nainital (-6.44 sq km), Udham Singh Nagar (-4.21 sq km) and Haridwar (-2.75 sq km) while all other 10 districts registered growth in forest area.
Maximum increase was registered in Uttarkashi (8 sq km), Dehradun with 3.69 square km followed by Pithoragarh (1.80sq km), Bageshwar (1.69 sq km), Champawat (1.55 sq km), Almora (1.14 sq km), Pauri (0.99 sq km), and Chamoli (0.43 sq km).