NT NETWORK
PANAJI
A project as regards preparing People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR) and City Biodiversity Index (CBI) for Panaji will soon be undertaken by the Corporation of the City of Panaji through The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), with an aim to document the biodiversity treasures of the capital city including nomadic population, aquatic bodies, cultivated lands and green areas, different species and their groups, etc.
The Biodiversity Management Committee set up by the CCP has given the mandate to the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation for hiring an agency to assist in the said documentation work.
The city MLA and the vice-chairman of the GSIDC Sidharth Kunkalienkar, on Friday, informed the media, in the presence of the CCP Commissioner Deepak Desai that the project would serve the purpose of identifying the habitats, ecosystems for preservation, identification of local races, folk varieties, stocks and breeds of domesticated animals and micro-organisms, and so on.
“The study will not only go a long way in defining Panaji, but would also work in tandem with the Smart City Initiative for the capital city, especially as many bio-diversity conservation zones have been identified in this initiative,” he added, pointing out that it would also prove helpful for implementation of Green Highways Policy in Goa.
“The study would be carried out during next one year, and will cost an estimated Rs 12 lakh,” the city legislator maintained, adding that the data collection exercise would be limited to the 30 city wards.
The data collected for documentation will be validated by the Goa State Biodiversity Board. Panaji is the second city in India, following Hyderabad that will undertake such self-assessment project.
People’s Biodiversity Register is a document that inventories the biodiversity of a given locality as well as people’s knowledge that is associated with the bio-resources, while City Biodiversity Index is a valuable self-assessment tool for monitoring and evaluating biodiversity in cities.
The project co-ordinator, Dr Fraddry D’Souza, who made a presentation on the project, stated that the PBR will contain three aspects namely peoplescape, landscape and lifescape, while CBI will include profile of the city and 23 indicators on city’s biodiversity.
He also informed that the 23 CBI indicators will be judged for a total of 92 points, with 10 indicators as regards the native biodiversity in the city having a maximum of 40 marks, 9 indicators as regards governance and management of biodiversity having a maximum of 36 marks and 4 indicators as regards ecosystem services provided by biodiversity having a maximum of 16 marks.
Dr D’Souza further said that TERI will be training members for identification and collection of data, and 5 volunteers would be recruited per ward for the PBR documentation.
The stakeholders in the project will include the Goa State Biodiversity Board, forest department, Botanical Society of Goa, World Wildlife Fund, Birds of Goa, and other agencies having expertise in the field.