Javadekar asks officers to focus on Image, Innovation, Initiative and Interacttion

Javadekar asks Forest Officers to Focus on Image Innovation, Initiative and Interaction
Shri Prakash Javadekar while addressing a gathering of PCCFs (Principal Chief Conservation of Forests) & wildlife wardens emphasised that they must focus on what he termed as 4 'I's namely Image, Innovation, Initiative and Interaction.

The minister said that improving the quality of forests is a major challenge. “We must ensure that degraded forest must be converted into moderately dense forest in 10 years and moderately dense forest must be converted into dense forests in 5 years. To that end, water harvesting and changing some species is a must. Forest research institutes must draw up a distinct plan of improving the quality of each forest, taking the existing flora and climate into consideration”.

It is not clear as to what the minister meant by "changing some species".

Improving the quality of forests that is species diversity and richness of a forest is very important. In the July issue of IndiaWilds Newsletter http://www.indiawilds.com/diary/indi...l-7-issue-vii/ we had talked about the need for removing lantana and other invasives. I hope the minister meant removing invasives when he talked about changing some species.

On the surface the Minister's speech is good. However, the PCCFs and wildilfe wardens shouldn't just go on a tree plantation drive to make the forests dense. That would mean even planting trees in grasslands and changing the nature of the forests. All we want is remove the invasives and promote native species. I am sure the Forest research institute will do a scientific planning.

Shri Javadekar laid emphasis on ensuring people’s participation in changing the quality of forests. Again this is what we had suggested to him by sharing the IndiaWilds newsletter July issue where I had talked about using MNREGA to remove invasives. He also urged the officers to provide solutions to various challenges.