April 22: The Mumbai Think Tank organised a discussion on `Coastal Zone Management in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region' on the eve of United Nations sponsored Earth Day today. UN has declared this year as the year of the Ocean.Former governor Homi J H Talyerkhan who presided over the meet observed steady loss of forest and increase of population urgently needed to be tackled by India. ``India is losing 1.3 million hectares of forest every year, eight times the rate put up by the government,'' he said.
``Afforestation could be the country's largest land reform movement,'' Talyerkhan said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
