Century-old trees to be tagged for conservation in West Bengal

There are hundreds of century-old trees across West Bengal and they have micro-ecosystems of their own and houses hundreds of birds, insects, reptiles and other animals such as bats

Century-old trees, having huge canopies which houses hundreds of birds and other animals, may soon be tagged in West Bengal for their protection, officials in the state biodiversity board said.

The West Bengal government is in the process of identifying century-old trees in the state. (Representative Image)

“Plans are afoot to identify and tag ancient trees, which are at least a century or two old, for their protection and conservation,” said HS Debnath, chairman of the state biodiversity board.

These trees have micro-ecosystems of their own and houses hundreds of birds, insects, reptiles and other animals such as bats.

“There are hundreds of such trees across the state. We are in the process of identifying some to begin with. We would be taking the help of the People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBR) which have been prepared at the village panchayat level,” he said.

The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 made it mandatory for every local body to constitute a Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) within its area. One of the main functions of the BMCs is to prepare a Peoples’ Biodiversity Register (PBR) in consultation with local people.

A PBR comprehensively documents the local biodiversity including preservation of habitats, folk varieties and cultivars, domesticated stocks and breeds of animals and micro-organisms and chronicling of knowledge relating to biological diversity of the area. More than 3,000 such PBRs have been prepared in the state.

“Discussions are now going on over which kind of trees we would select in the initial stage and what would be the criteria,” he added.

The state biodiversity board has already notified 10 sites as Biodiversity Heritage Sites, the highest in the country so far, said an official. The latest in the series was the Amkhoi Wood Fossil Park in Birbhum district.

“It was in 2006 that while digging a pond, villagers stumbled upon a huge bone-like structure. It turned out to be a wood fossil. Later scientific digging retrieved more such fossilised wood which were at more than 10 million years old. To protect the area it was turned into a park,” said an official.

Also, the state biodiversity board has launched a project to conserve the locally threatened indigenous fish species.

“They have been named Abhoy Pukur. At present there are ten such ponds in the state,” the official said.