RAJOURI: A meeting of Biodiversity management Committee Talla Tanda was held today under the chairmanship of Neelima Shah, Divisional Forest officer Nowshera. The meeting was attended by Mohan Singh Sarpanch, Talla Tanda, besides members of BMC and a number of locals. At the outset, Rakesh Verma, Technical Officer J&K Biodiversity Council (Range Forest Officer Sunderbani) welcomed the participants and gave a brief overview of the Biodiversity Management Committee, its functions, responsibilities. He informed that the main function of BMC was to prepare a register of all the biological resources of BMC in a pre- designed format which is known as Peoples Biodiversity Register (PBR). He also informed that PBRs have already been prepared for all the local bodies, now ‘we have to update the information registered in the PBRs.’
“A 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,” he added. The Divisional Forest Officer, while addressing the house, informed that PBR was an important document containing the information about the biodiversity of a BMC. “It needs to be carefully updated, all the information regarding flora and fauna should be properly documented” she added and 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 and a bird eye view photo of Gram Panchayat would 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 Dildar Singh and Block Forest Officer Dharamsal Ved Parkash along with other Forest officials of Kangri Block.
Mohan Singh Sarpanch Talla Tanda presented vote of thanks. He also assured that the Gram Panchayat was always ready to help the Forest department in all matters. The meeting of BMC are 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, Conservator of Forest, West Circle Rajouri.