India’s first ‘Grass Conservatory’ was inaugurated by the research wing of Uttarakhand forest department on November 14, 2021 in Ranikhet of Almora district.
- Established in an area of 2 acre, the project has been funded under central government’s CAMPA scheme, it took 3 years to develop this conservation area by the research wing of the department.
- Around 90 different grass species have been conserved/demonstrated in this conservation area.
- The project aims to create awareness about importance of grass species, promote conservation and to facilitate further research in these species.
Importance of grass species
- Grasslands are facing various type of threats and area under grasslands are shrinking, thereby endangering entire ecosystem of insects, birds and mammals dependent on them.
- Grasses are economically the most important of all flowering plants because of their nutritious grains and soil forming function.
- Grasses are key for ‘Carbon Sequestration’, the process in which grasses store most of the absorbed carbon underground.
- When there is forest fire Carbon stored in trees info of biomass is released into the atmosphere while fores in grasslands do not get affected as the grass species store the Carbon underground. Many research suggest that grassland holds more than a third of world’s land based Carbon.
(Source: NIE)
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