In a first, pvt forests to be on govt records

Panaji: For the first time, the state government will bring private forests in Goa on record. On Friday, it amended the Goa Land Revenue (Record of Rights and Register of Cultivators) Rules, 1969.
In January, the state government invited objections and suggestions for the draft rules called the Goa Land Revenue (Record of Rights and Register of Cultivators) (Amendment) Rules, 2022.
A senior officer said that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in its August 18, 2020, order directed the state government to identify private forest. He said that forest officials conducted a survey and identified the areas.
The NGT order approving 46.11sqkm of private forest in Goa was based on the findings of the Sawant and the Karapurkar committees. Later it was reviewed and confirmed by the Sharma committee.
“It is for the first time that private forests will be on government records. Earlier, no such thing was mentioned in form I & XIV,” a senior officer said.
“No objections or suggestions have been received from the public on the said draft rules by the government within the stipulated period. Now, the government hereby makes amendments to the Goa Land Revenue (Record of Rights and Register of Cultivators) Rules, 1969,” said Durga Kinlekar, Under Secretary (Revenue-I).
The following clause has been inserted in the act: “Entry is made to indicate the land as private forest.”
The committees headed by retired forest officers V T Thomas and F X Araujo worked between 2012 and 2017 to identify new survey numbers with private forests.
The criteria to identify private forests applied by the Goa government in the case of all committees is that 75% of the tree composition of such lands should be of forestry species. The other criteria state that the area should be either contiguous to government forest lands or, if in isolation, the minimum area identified should be five hectares and canopy density should not be less than 0.4%.