Letters: Growing green

Some of the concerns raised in the editorial titled “Green cover-up” (February 15) merit attention including the statement that “Equally baffling is the bid to hold chopping of eucalyptus trees responsible for declining forest cover in some states”. ITC Limited has established India’s largest and most eco-friendly pulp, paper and paperboard mill in the Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh; the Indian State of Forest Report’s alleged contention that harvesting eucalyptus trees for agroforestry in the Khammam district has led to the loss of forest cover is wrong and misleading. ITC has facilitated cultivation of 207-square kilometre (sq km) eucalyptus plantations under its Farm and Social Forestry programmes. In addition, it has facilitated subabul plantations covering 122 sq km. India’s eucalyptus harvest in 2011 was a meagre 18.5 sq km, less than 10 per cent of the company-facilitated plantations. It is important to acknowledge that harvesting eucalyptus does not lead to a loss of green cover because the tree regrows three times in coppice management systems. Certainly, the reasons for the loss of forest cover in this area lie elsewhere. We do believe that agroforestry needs to be included in green cover, if not in forest cover, because it contributes to carbon sequestration as efficiently. This has been recognised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by registering ITC’s 3,500 hectares of Social Forestry Plantations worth 57,000 certified emission reductions per annum.

 

Nazeeb Arif,
Vice-President, Corporate Communications,
ITC Ltd, Kolkata

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