Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has stressed the need for embarking on an ecological restoration mission to rein in the degradation of forests and nurture biodiversity.
Eco-restoration was also key to the State’s hopes of achieving water security, ecological stability and sustainable development, he added.
Inaugurating a two-day national seminar on eco-restoration that concluded here on Friday, Mr. Vijayan elaborated on the efforts being made to phase out exotic monoculture plantations of eucalyptus, acacia and wattle. The proliferation of such invasive species had depleted natural forests and had forced wild animals to stray into human habitations for food, thereby compounding the human-wildlife conflict.
