Come 2025, a forest action plan may give boost to green conservation efforts in city

New Delhi: Delhi forest department has approached Forest Research Institute (FRI) to compile a comprehensive action plan for the city's forests, something that Delhi has been lacking so far.
According to officials at forest department, the plan, which is likely to come into action from 2025, will be the first such exercise for Delhi, focusing on all its forests, including reserve, urban and other city forests.The plan, officials said, would help forest department manage city forests and guide it in their conservation, afforestation activities, transplantations and species to be planted, among other things.
"Delhi has been missing a work plan for forests while all other states have one. So, FRI has been approached for the same. It will be a comprehensive plan that will help us manage the forests of the city. It will also guide us on how to, or under what circumstances, permission to fell a tree should be given, and if compensatory afforestation is to be done, then how and where it must be carried out. It will also lay down the areas of the city where green cover must be increased and how to manage that green cover," said a forest official, adding that the FRI plan would focus on the city's floral diversity.
Earlier this year, forest department had also approached Wildlife Institute of India (WII) to get a wildlife management plan for Asola Wildlife Sanctuary, with a focus on a man-animal conflict. The next 10-year action plan for Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary will have among its top priorities the issue of man-animal conflict mitigation, aiming to coexist alongside a healthy and thriving leopard population within the city.
The current 10-year management plan for Asola Bhatti, from 2015-16 to 2024-25, was prepared by FRI, Dehradun, and will expire after March 2025. Forest department has engaged WII, Dehradun, to draft the next plan.