Kerala panchayat offers incentives for planting trees to become carbon neutral

A panchayat at Wayanad district in Kerala is offering incentives to people for planting trees and initiating activities like promoting solar power, decentralised waste management and waste recycling with the aim of making the panchayat carbon neutral.

Already over two lakh trees have been planted as part of the tree banking project at Meenangadi panchayat and an incentive of Rs 50 per tree is being given annually to landowners for each tree for a period of ten years. The target is to plant 5.5 lakh trees across the panchayat.

The carbon-neutral project of Meenangadi was initiated in 2017 as a pilot project with the larger aim of making the entire high-range district of Wayanad carbon neutral. Though the aim was to declare the panchayat carbon neutral by 2020, it got delayed owing to the Covid pandemic as well as the local body elections in the state. Now the project is targeted to be completed by next year.

Thanal, an NGO working in the field of environment protection, is implementing the project with the Kerala government's support.

Meenangadi, which is situated around 15 kilometres from Kalpetta town of Wayanad, was estimated to have total carbon emission of 33,375 tonnes CO2 Eq in 2016-17, while the carbon sequestration was 21,962.53 CO2 Eq. The excess emission was found to be 11,412.57 tonnes of CO2 eq. Based on this, projects for bringing down carbon emission and enhancing sequestration were initiated, Thanal's programme officer Ajith Tomy told DH.

Tree banking is one of the most effective initiatives being carried out. Various varieties of trees, especially fruit-bearing ones like jackfruit and mango, are being planted on private premises and the landowners are offered Rs 50 per year for each tree as an incentive for ten years. They need to return the money without interest only if the trees are cut. A geotagging of the trees were also being done.

Tomy said that many farmers were having a large extent of land where 100 to 200 saplings could be planted. Hence the farmers would be receiving a reasonable amount as an incentive under the tree banking project.

Promoting the use of solar lamps, decentralised waste management, reuse of plastic waste for road construction purposes are other major projects aimed at reducing carbon emission.

The carbon emission assessment had found that the transport sector was contributing 45 per cent of the emission. Hence various projects like promoting electric vehicles and use of public transport systems were also mooted as part of the project, he said.

Meenangadi panchayat president K E Vinayan said that even as the panchayat governing body had changed, the new governing body was also giving priority to the project. Schemes to reduce carbon emission in more sectors were being planned, he said.

Tommy said that as per the present plans fresh assessment of the carbon emission and sequestration would be conducted in 2022, based on which the panchayat could be declared.

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