Focus: GS-III Environment and Ecology
Why in news?
Encouraged by germination and subsequent growth in bamboo plantations, Odisha’s Athagarh Forest Division has begun casting seed balls inside different reserve forest areas to enrich food stock for wild elephants.
Details and How is it going to help?
- The growth in bamboo plantation is expected to meet the needs of the elephants, which often stray out of the forests and raid human habitations.
- Villagers who bear the brunt of the elephant attacks have come forward to prepare the bamboo seed balls and scatter them in the reserve forests.
- A vigorous monsoon with copious rains has helped the villagers and forest department personnel to ensure that the seed balls have germinated and taken root.
- For restoration of bamboo forests, a massive awareness campaign was launched in all the villages hit by elephant depredation.
- Villagers joined the campaign hoping to ensure the bamboo plants will keep the elephants in the forests rather than straying into their villages.
-Source: The Hindu
