India will phase out monoculture plantation and upgrade its afforestation and forest restoration methodology by incorporating better practices followed in the G20 countries, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) said on Thursday.
Addressing the media on the sidelines of the first meeting of the G20's Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group (ECSWG), Director General, Forests and Special Secretary at MoEF C P Goyal said.
To a question on the monoculture plantation doing more harm to envirionment, Goyal noted that restoration of forests and other degraded areas was one of the key focus areas at the ECSWG. "Previously, a lot many areas were coming under monoculture. We are now trying to adopt a holistic approach. Today Turkiye made a beutiful presentation about the restoration. We will learn from other countries about effective interventions," he said.
Bivash Ranjan, Additional Director General (Forest), added that the goals of restoration have now been enhanced to include bringing back the fauna as well. "Restoration was initially aimed at greening the area. Now, we are focusing on ecological restoration. Bringing back the largest fauna in that particular ecosystem is the actual ecological restoration," he added.