The State government has made elaborate preparations to observe the World Environment Day across the districts on Wednesday. More than 7,000 people are expected to join the programme, while 3,00,000 tree saplings have been arranged for free distribution to the public.
Speaking at a send-off ceremony of forest officials to the districts to observe the World Environment Day here on Tuesday, Environment, Forest & Climate Change minister CM Chang observed that the day was a platform for encouraging worldwide awareness and action to protect environment. He said this year the department was reaching out to all the districts to observe the day, adding that all senior officials in the district headquarters had been allotted the responsibility to ensure that the day was celebrated in a befitting manner.
Exhorting the officials, Chang remarked, “As custodians and guardians of forest, environment and wildlife, all of us in the department should do our duty well. As a department, we don’t have much land. So we should always reach out to the local village communities for conservation of environment. Our forests are our natural heritage and, as tribals, our identity will be lost when we lose our forests.”
He also released “State of Environment Report for Nagaland” on the occasion. The minister appealed to all organisations, the church, student bodies, government departments and public to care and nurture the environment, “for environmental degradation will affect everyone and it is our joint responsibility to prevent that”. Thanking those churches that were having their Sunday Morning service with environment as the theme, he said “Human beings are the caretakers of God’s creation and environment is one of the core areas of Christianity”.
Meanwhile, Chang reiterated that change was on the agenda of the PDA government and that, as part of this, many changes were being brought in the department. Under Nagaland Forest Management Project, he said afforestation projects would be undertaken in about 14,000 ha across 32 villages. Each project site would be mapped using GPS and integrated with the department website using latest GIS technology.
And to ensure cashless payments, he said that no cash payment above Rs10,000 would be permitted.
Chang said the government, in cooperation with village communities, had notified 75 Community Reserves across the State in the last one year under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. He said this had increased the number of community reserves from 15 to 93 and now covered an area of 674.2257 sq km. He asserted that this was part of the government’s efforts to ensure land and natural resource security to village communities.
He announced that the government was working to bring an “actionable and doable policy” for wood-based manufacturing sector to boost the State’s GDP, while also providing a value-based chain business ecosystem from jhum fields to the shops and open employment opportunities to thousands of youth. He remarked, “We Nagas are tribal. We love wood. We also love art and work with wood. There is a huge untapped potential in the forestry sector which we need to seriously work on. We will ‘Make in Nagaland’.”
Earlier, in his opening remarks, principal chief conservator of forest Satya Prakash Tripathi thanked the government for taking proactive steps in wildlife and environment conservation. He pointed out that the decision to declare Amur Falcon as State guest and prohibit gifting of wildlife as gifts in official functions showed the government’s commitment in this regard.