G20's First Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group (ECSWG)

About

• The discussions at ECSWG will focus on the agenda ‘Promotion of Blue Economy along with Coastal Sustainability’, ‘Restoration of Degraded Lands and Ecosystems’ and ‘Enhancement of Biodiversity’ and ‘Strengthening of Circular Economy’.
• It is to be hosted by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).

Initiatives by Karnataka State Forest Department:

• e- Parihara, an online application that helps in processing and sanction of ex-gratia claims in cases of man-animal conflicts; thus, bringing in transparency and efficiency in the processing of claims.
• e- Gastu an Android based platform captures forest patrolling/field activities undertaken by frontline staff of the forest department, which can be visualized by supervisory officers over satellite imageries, on regular basis.
• e- timber facility provides a near real time wood stock available in government timber depots and enables e-auction facilities for timber/ other forest produce in government timber depots.
• The Geo-Spatial Forest Information System developed by the Karnataka Forest Department is a unique platform which uses Remote Sensing and GIS technology and provides spatial database of all notified forest lands in the State, providing access to the forest land notifications, village maps, forest maps and digitised notified forest at cadastral level.
• The Forest Fire Management System is a comprehensive solution for planning, mitigation and analysis of forest fire which provides forest fire risk zonation mapping, fire start vulnerability mapping, burnt area assessment along with a robust system for dissemination of active forest fire alerts to ensure that all fire incidences are addressed and mitigated in a time bound manner.

 

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Q1) What is sustainable tourism?

Sustainable tourism is defined by the UN Environment Program and UN World Tourism Organization as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.”

Source: G20's First Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group (ECSWG) Meeting to be held from February 09-11, 2023 at Bengaluru