A meeting of the Biodiversity Management Committee was held today under the chairmanship of Neelima Shah, Divisional Forest Officer Nowshera at Lower Kangri. The meeting was attended by Roshan Lal Sarpanch, Lower Kangri, besides members of BMC and a number of locals.
Rakesh Verma Technical Officer J&K Biodiversity Council (Range Forest Officer Sunderbani) welcomed all the participants and gave a brief overview of the Biodiversity Management Committee, its functions, responsibilities.
He informed the house that the main function of BMC is to prepare a register of all the biological resources of BMC in a pre- designed register which is known as Peoples Biodiversity Register (PBR). He also informed the people that PBRs have already been prepared for all the local bodies, now we have to update the information registered in the PBRs.
The set of PBR contains 31 formats, each format contains specific information about the biodiversity. Once the PBR is updated, it will aid in tracing how habitats are changing, and to understand and estimate parts of our forests.
Neelima Shah, Divisional Forest Officer Nowshera while addressing the house informed that PBR is an important document containing the information about the biodiversity of a BMC. It should be carefully updated, all the information regarding flora and fauna should be properly documented.
She also threw light on the importance and role of BMC in forest management as well as local resource management. She said that a detailed map of Gram Panchayat and a bird eye view photo of Gram Panchayat should also be added in PBR.
Apart from BMC and PBR she also discussed the Forest Rights Act and its implementation in detail with the participants of the meeting. The BMC meeting was organized by Block Forest Officer, Kangri Didar Singh and Block Forest Officer Dharamsal Ved Parkash along with other Forest officials of Kangri Block.
Roshan Lal Sarpanch Lower Kangri presented vote of thanks to the Forest Department in general and Divisional Forest Officer Nowshera and Range Officer Sunderbani in particular for organizing BMC meetings in the far flung Panchayat of Sunderbani.
He also assured Divisional Forest Officer Nowshera that Gram Panchayat is always ready to help the Forest department in all matters. The meeting of BMC was conducted under the direct supervision of Dr. Mohit Gera, (Chairman J&K Bio Diversity council) PCCF (HOFF), Asaf Mehmood Sagar (Member Secretary) J&K Bio Diversity council) APCCF Director J&K FRI, Vivek Verma IFS Conservator of Forest, West Circle Rajouri.