GURGAON: India’s forest cover, stretching up to 165 million acres, is roughly the size of Texas in the U.S., and another 15 million acres will be added to it, according to Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh.
Mr. Ramesh urged United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to support India’s call to reward countries that had taken the lead in increasing the forest cover.
Speaking at the ITC Green Building here on Sunday, he said India was launching a major programme to regenerate its forest cover. “We are just embarking on a close to $ 3-billion programme [to begin with] to regenerate our natural forests that already cover some 165 million acres, roughly the size of Texas.”
In the next six years, the country hoped to bring another 15 million acres under forest cover. “This is one of the largest carbon sinks in the world – and a sink that will only grow in size and impact. In this connection, I seek your support for India’s proposals to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, that is to acknowledge and reward countries that are in the business of actually expanding forest cover,” he said.
Mr. Ramesh regretted that India was not able to get credit at international forums for the work in forestry management.
Referring to the three areas where the two countries can cooperate, he said India and U.S. could jointly work on research, development, demonstration and dissemination of projects in areas such as solar energy, biomass and waste-water utilisation.
There could be collaboration in environmental planning, regulation and management.
“We are planning to set up a National Green Tribunal as some sort of an environmental court. We can also team up on continuing research on climate change and its impacts,” he said.
