The Forest Survey of India (FSI) said on Wednesday that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing an increasing trend of Forest Carbon in last ten years.
Forest carbon refers to the amount of carbon stored in the world’s forest ecosystem, mainly in living biomass and soil, but to a lesser extent also in dead wood and litter.
Addressing officers of J&K forest department here at one day workshop on E-Greenwatch portal for digital monitoring of plantation works at Forest Information Centre, FSI Director General, Dr Subash Ashutosh said Udhampur district has the unique distinction of having the varied number of forest types in the country, indicating high biodiversity in a single district, according to an official spokesperson.
“The DG FSI highlighted the ongoing cooperation between FSI and J&K Forest Department for preparation of National Forest Inventory. He informed that the data generated during the exercise will be used to estimate availability of wood for Wood Based Industries of the State, besides utilisation in estimating Intended Nationally Determined Contribution,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“While speaking on the occasion, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Suresh Chugh emphasized on the need of adopting digital approach to concurrent monitoring of field works to bring transparency and help better decision making,” the statement said.
“The workshop was attended by senior officers of forest department including P K Singh, Director Soil conservation, Sameer Bharti, CCF Jammu, B. Mohandass, CF, East, Dr. Jitinder Kumar Singh CF, West, M.K. Kumar, Regional Director, Social Forestry Department Jammu, Harmohinder Singh, CF, Working Plan and DFOs of various forest divisions and technicians. Sarvesh Rai, Addl. PCCF and Chief Executive Officer, CAMPA organized the event,” the statement added.