‘Green Army’ eyes one crore people to boost environment

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Forest department in order to attract more people towards the environment, has started an initiative called ‘Green Army — Maharashtra’. The Green Army aims to have one crore people involved in it, and has been given a target of 10 lakh people being registered all over the state.

The initiative was begun on January 6, and its website greenarmy.mahaforest.gov.in was launched on January 14. Each forest heads are given individual targets to meet the aim of one crore participants. By being a member of this army, one will be notified on all department activities. This would include animal census, tree plantation drives, etc.

The forest department will also come up with advertisements on print as well as broadcast media from February in order to publicise the initiative. The Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) as well as the Thane Forest Department (TFD) have been given individual targets to complete in January. While SGNP has been asked to do around 1.50 lakh registrations by month end, the TFD has to sign up 60,000 people for the ‘Green Army’ by January end.

Speaking to The Asian Age, Sunil Limaye, chief conservator of forest (CCF) of TFD said, “The aim in this concept is to not only have transparency in our initiatives towards environment but also involve them in various activities so that more can be contributed to nature.” The ultimate aim of the department is to have 50 crore plantations by March end this year. The department through video conferencing with all its offices in the state on Friday decided to make the greenarmy.mahaforest.gov.in website simpler in order to make it more user friendly.