Dhulikhel Municipality adopts GPS for plant conservation

The Dhulikhel Municipality has launched an afforestation campaign. One among the 15 municipalities across the world with zero carbon emission, Dhulikhel Municipality has started the campaign of planting 100 thousand saplings, for now, to create a basis and structure for further contributing to reducing carbon emission.

Under the afforestation campaign, the Municipality has planted 15 thousand fruit saplings in the first phase in its three wards – wards no 2, 3, and 11. It is said the plants would be monitored and conserved using GPS technology.

"GPS has been installed in all the newly-planted saplings. The plants would be monitored using this," said Ashok Byanju, the Municipality's mayor. He said the use of GPS technology in conserving the saplings planted under the afforestation campaign is the first time in the Kavrepalanchok district and the municipality.

According to him, all the saplings have been given a number and connected to the GPS. The growth progress of the saplings would be monitored through GPS and if any issue arises in the growth of plants the system would immediately notify about the same. The municipality's department concerned can then immediately intervene in such a situation.

Mayor Byanju said along with the afforestation, the Municipality has adopted the policy of establishing only the industries emitting zero carbon, making the infrastructure construction environmentally friendly, and of increasing the forested area in the municipality to 40 percent of the total area by protecting the local forests.

He claimed that the Dhulikhel Municipality is the first municipality in the country to formulate and implement an environmental-friendly Act and in line with this the Municipality has been made a municipality with 'zero carbon emission'.

Similarly, the Municipality has been processing 61 percent of its sewage water before releasing it into streams and it has started a project for treating the fecal waste and producing gas and fertilizer from it. Mayor Byanju said the Municipality has started constructing a garden at the local Tundikhel Park where different varieties of roses found in the world would be grown.

According to experts, 20 thousand fully-grown trees help reduce 8,000 tonnes of carbon. Based on this premise, Dhulikhel would contribute to reducing 40 thousand tonnes of carbon once the 100 thousand saplings planted for this purpose are fully grown.

The afforestation campaign will be gradually expanded in all 12 wards of the municipality.

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