Inter-state forest officials agree to use sat maps for fixing

A workshop of Forest department officials from Telangana and other states held here today decided to take measures, including use of satellite maps, to fix forest boundaries of states.
"It is also decided to have Geo-reference of the every forest block, to fix the boundaries with the help of the satellite maps and to place this information and data with the field level forest officers and employees," a Telangana government release said.
Union Environment and Forests Director General Siddhanth Das met with the senior forest officials from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha here, it said.
He took part in the workshop on forest lands' situation, protection and digitalisation of the forest blocks in the three States, it said.

The workshop was held in the backdrop of the Supreme Court's verdict that the boundaries of the forest lands in the country should be settled with proper calculations, it said.
It was decided at the workshop that there should be coordination among states in the country to decide on the inter-state boundaries, as per the release.
"It is generally accepted at the conference that once the forest lands boundaries are fixed, there will be a solution to disputes and litigations. The officers took part in a panel discussion on the study of methods adopted by the state governments, the best practices and how to implement them for the protection of the forest lands," the release said.

The officials felt that it is necessary to have stringent security measures in place to curb illegal mining and encroachments of the forestlands, it said, adding that digitisation of the forest blocks is also necessary.