Kathmandu : The government has making preparations to establish the ‘Forest Development Fund’ for the protection and promotion of forest area.
‘The National Forest Policy, 2075’ endorsed recently by the Council of Ministers incorporates the provision of setting up the Fund under which the government will not have mandatory responsibility for the conservation and other promotional programmes regarding the forest area.
Budget to be obtained from the development projects related to the forest area will be deposited to the Fund and spent for the conservation efforts, according to Ministry Spokesperson Dr Sindhu Prasad Dhungana. The Ministry has geared up to develop a working procedure for the Fund operation.
As per the existing provisions, any development project using the forest area will purchase an equal area of used land in other site and plant 25 trees for cutting down one tree. The property should be handed over to the respective forest office following its cultivation up to five years.
The Ministry has proposed to hand over the responsibility of operating the Fund to the ‘Nepal Forest Commission’. The new ‘National Forest Policy’ replaced the ‘Forest Policy, 2071 BS’. RSS
