Conservation of flora and fauna: Karnataka State forest department arranges festivals on the importance of frogs, wolves, and grasslands

With the aim of generating awareness about the conservation of different varieties of fauna except for big cats like tigers, leopards, and elephants, the Karnataka Forest Department has planned a series of festivals before March 2022.

The festival will highlight the importance of other animals in the ecosystem except for tigers and elephants. Principal Chief Conservator of Forest and Head of Forest Force Sanjay Mohan told the Indian express that the Forest Department has planned a Wolf Festival to highlight the need to conserve carnivores like jackals wolves and hyenas. They mostly inhabit the scrub forest region and government wastelands.

Another festival for the conservation of turtles has been planned in Honnavar where a marine sanctuary will come up. The marine turtles visit this area to lay eggs on the coastal belt like Kundaour and Honnavar. The forest department will also look after the conservation of other marine animals.

The Principal Chief Conservator also highlighted that a festival for frogs will be held on the banks of the Sharavathi river followed by a grass festival in the coming months. All the festivals are lined up before March 2022. Karnataka is also prepping to welcome its first marine sanctuary by early 2022 in Uttara Kannada. The forest department moreover, finds the conservation of marine animals like bottlenose dolphins, whitetip sharks, Olive Ridley turtles found in the coastal belt is imperative.

The sanctuary will make the state think that this part of the biodiversity is equally important., said forest and chief wildlife warden, Karnataka, Vijaykumar Gogi

Meanwhile, the Kudremukh Wildlife Divison of the forest department is taking care of the flora of the place by organizing ‘Shola Utsav’ to deliberate on the importance and conservation of Shola forests and grasslands. The festival was organized last month.

The evergreen Shola vegetation is mostly found in the evergreen higher montane regions of Karnataka. The government has also earmarked Rs 5 crore to protect, conserve the shola vegetation in the state.